Hanson's Marathon Plan

I have a good friend, Cherl, who has been through a lot with me in marathon training over the years. We met on a running forum when we discovered we had identical first marathon times- 5:11. Both of us knew we were capable of better than that. We have gone our own ways but now I believe we have similar PRs and have run a similar number of marathons. We even ran one marathon "together" at St George, but didn't find each other at the beginning. This was too bad because we finished just a few minutes apart. It would have been nice to have her to keep me going even when the race wasn't what I wanted. :-)

So, this brings us to now. Cherl's PR is a 3:52 and she needs a 3:45 to qualify. My PR is a 3:48 and  I need a 3:40. She is much faster than me on normal runs. She found a marathon plan that has worked for some of her friends called Hanson's Marathon training. It intrigued me enough that I am going to "experiment" with it.

It has a day of speedwork, a day of marathon pace running, 3 days of slow runs and a long run. The long runs don't get longer than 16 miles. That seems crazy, but the idea is that you are running tired from the other runs, but you can recover faster for the quality speed miles. We will see how it goes. I ran 41 miles last week and this week was my first attempt at the schedule. I am somewhere between their beginner schedule and their advanced schedule so that makes it a little tricky to plan. Here is my week so far.

Monday- 12x400s at 5k or 10k pace. I ran them all between 1:44 and 1:50. It was tough, but I did it!
Tuesday- short recovery run on the treadmill- 3.5 miles
Wednesday- today was a 6 mile pace run. I was hoping it would go really well, but it was tough and I couldn't hit the paces. I am not sure what this means. I felt a little light headed so I don't know if I had enough in my system. I need to make sure I eat more carbs. With nursing still, I am sure I need to be extra careful.

My heart rate got too high too soon. I ran 8:20, 8:19, 8:22, 8:48, 8:48, 8:47. I am glad I hung in there even when I wasn't feeling great. I was thinking about giving up and then I went home and actually signed up for the marathon. So, now I am stuck!! I am hoping this keeps me working hard. I may not be ready to BQ, but I am ready to get racing again. I love having a goal, I just need to accept where my body is.

Okay, the baby is crying hard. I thought he would go to sleep.

I will keep updating. I am running Yakima River Canyon Marathon on April 5th and no matter what it will be an amazing experience!