“I got soul but I’m not a soldier…” – The Killers
That song, “All These Things That I’ve Done,” while a few years old, has been a bit of a rallying cry for me since the turn of the year. Do you ever have one of those songs that just sticks in your head, and when things get a little tough, it gives you a jolt? This tune does it for me.
Case in point: At the indoor track yesterday, grinding through the 3-mile tempo portion of my run, I found my thoughts – and pace – drifting. Then that song snapped me back into focus.
Even with a sore ankle, I’ve decided to start my marathon training cycle anyway in advance of Grandma’s Marathon. Two weeks ago, when I severely sprained it in a trail race, I wasn’t sure when I’d get back to running, let alone cranking out specific marathon workouts.
This week I decided to jump into it, having already missed the speed work from the first week in my training cycle. And that means back to the familiar Tuesday surge workout: a few miles of warmup, followed by 20-second surge intervals with 1-minute recovery jogging between each rep, and a few more miles of cooldown. I love that workout as it trains the legs to go fast and shift gears, and gives some great physiological benefits.
In the early portion of the training cycle, Thursdays focus on building up the duration of tempo runs.
Running clockwise on the track, though, puts extra torque and strain on my ankle, so I definitely felt the effects of the workout. Plus, I’m still dialing in pace, so while the tempo portion wasn’t quite as fast as I’d like, the miles before and after the speed portion were much faster than needed. The result was an 8+ mile workout run at a pace faster than my goal marathon pace.
Still, it felt really good, and it didn’t feel hard – a great sign early in training as I build my mileage and aim to set some personal records at several distances this year.
And as February draws on, I’m excited to start some cross-training, with a new venture on a road bike as a secondary and complementary workout a few times a week. Dialing in my diet, both in terms of nutrition and recovery, isn’t where it needs to be, but progress there is helping me feel more fit each week.
