Week 1 of Twin Cities Marathon training

I've decided to use this space to track my training for the Twin Cities Marathon. It would be the 4th place I'm tracking (in addition to my running log, my mileage calendar at work, my run/strength training calendar at home), but hey, what's one more?

This is after last year's Twin Cities 10 Mile race, which has been my best race to date. I trained well, I felt strong during the race, I had negative splits and ran pretty aggressively the last 6 miles. While I'd like to think I can repeat that level of performance, 10 miles isn't 26.2. It's an entirely different ball game and I'm not kidding myself. My IT band issue flared up again last winter, and am still shaking off the last lingering effects of that.

I've modified the Green Bay Marathon training plan for this race. The first 3-4 weeks are similar in distance to what I've been doing the past month, and this gives me a level of confidence in my base training. I was worried that my IT band injury was going to leave me at 0 at the beginning of the training plan. I've got 7-8 weeks of base training, in addition to the first 3 weeks of the marathon training. The marathon plan adds an additional day of running per week, but since the daily mileage is similar, I'm not worried about it.

This week so far:
Sat/Sun - off. I decided to take a break and sleep in before 18 weeks of long early weekend runs.
Mon - 3.5 miles, hills. In St. Paul, there's some big elevation gains from the river up to the Cathedral (260 feet). The route follows the last half mile or so of the Twin Cities course, so I like to imagine that I'm finishing the marathon when I do this route.
Tues - 3 miles, and I did some of the physical therapy/strength training routine from my physical therapist and a few yoga stretches for my hips.
Wed - Strength training. I've started using this Nike Training Club app to vary my strength training, since I was getting a bit bored. I'll let you know how I like it. I did the 15 minute Ab Burner workout.

Plans for rest of the week:
Thurs -3 miles, easy. I have to learn how to run easy - every run tends to turn into a tempo run and I have to give myself a break some of the time.
Friday - 3 miles, easy, plus yoga. I actually think my IT band re-flare up from mid May was because I had not gone to yoga for three weeks in a row.
Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - rest