Week 1-Midweek Recap

I hate treadmills. I hate them with a passion. However, I quickly realized that if I'm going to give marathon training 100% effort, I'm going to need to warm up to the machine. Tuesday was the first official day of the 18 week training program and I'm committed to running in the morning before work. However, when I woke up on Tuesday, it was of course--raining. Oh, Chicago. Why must you tempt me into falling off the training plan on the FIRST DAY OF TRAINING?! I sat in bed for a good minute or two contemplating if I should run that night or if I should skip my first day of training. I finally came to my senses and said, "You have a gym membership. Go use the treadmill." So, I got ready for work that morning and packed a bag to take to the gym later that night. I can't believe I did my first official day of marathon training on a freaking treadmill. It's so not glamorous at all. There's something about running along Lake Michigan that inspires me to keep running. Maybe it's the skyline or maybe it's the sound of the waves. Who knows.

Since I was going to be running on a treadmill, I decided to really push myself to see how fast I could run 3 miles. I averaged a 6 mph pace for roughly a 32 minute finishing time. This is still over a 10 minute per mile pace. I haven't really pushed myself in my pre-training, but after some advice from my husband, I decided to try it out. On my shorter runs (3-5 miles), I'm going to really push myself to improve my overall pace. On the Saturday long runs, I'm going to run at a slower pace so I can finish comfortably. Plus, that's what all the reading I've done recommends.

Alright, day two of training happened this morning. The weather was a warm 71 degrees, which made for a great sweat! I couldn't believe how fast I ran the first mile (well, first .9 mile).... 8 minutes and 30 seconds! Holy moly! This was the fastest mile I've ran since high school. I knew it was too good to be true though, because mile 2 and 3 suffered. I ran the last 2 miles at a much slower pace, but still finished strong at 35 minutes overall.

Tomorrow is a 3 mile run and then, {dun, dun, dun} a 6 mile run on Saturday. As a side note, my Nike+ chip is not working. I have to take it back to the Nike Town store on Michigan Avenue to have it checked out. Grrr.

-Tanya