Enter Stage Left - Running

I, in all my wisdom, decided to run a marathon with virtually no training earlier this year. This brilliant decision resulted in a serious case of ITBS. Fortunately it didn’t effect my riding. Running, however, is a different story. I ran a 5K with Theresa a few weeks back, my first run since the marathon, and just about bit the dust a couple times from the severe ITBS pain. I hoped the 2.5 months of rest would have given it plenty of time to heal. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I’m going to have to deal with it until I can figure out how to get rid of it. I’m considering getting a Patt Strap to get by for now.

 

In an attempt to complete an entire marathon with out injury I decided to actually train for my next one. There’s just one catch, this time I’ll be running a half marathon the day before the marathon. This combination is called “Disney’s Goofy Race and a half Challenge”. So, not only do I need to be able to run an entire marathon, I’ll have to do it after completely exhausting my body physically and mentally the day before. Oh yeah, and I’ll have to remain injury free through all this.

 

There are a lot of training programs available out there. I found one that I like on www.marathontraining.com . While perusing their site I also noticed a program for “mileage buildup” which contains very low mileage for 19 Weeks. This is to get your legs in shape and used to the pounding they’ll be taking later on. After the 19 weeks of mileage buildup I’ll start the actual marathon training program which will last another 18 weeks. This should get my body used to running the longer distances required for the Goofy. I’m going to have to modify this program slightly to get my body used to running the longer distances 2 days in a row but I’m confident that, providing I can stay injury free, I’ll be able to pull this one off.

 

P.S. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on ditching my bike. I’ll have to use it as my cross training.