Couch to Marathon

September 20th, 2008

Tags: 10K, 5K, bloopers, funny, Half-marathon, marathon, running

You have no idea how long I’ve been itching to write this post. The idea for it came into my head… oh, about 6 months ago, when it looked very likely that I was going to achieve what everyone’s told me not to: Go from the Couch to running a Marathon in less than a year.

A little background: 11 months ago (almost exactly) I decided that it’d be neat to start running a little. My regular cardiovascular sport at that time was inline skating, which I did with gusto… yet unfortunately skates don’t do too well in wet or snowy conditions. So rather than shift over to a weight training program like I usually do during the winter months I decided to “pick up” running. At that point in time the idea that I would one day run a Marathon was still somewhere between WTF and Crazy Talk, but a quick 5K seemed like a good goal to achieve.

What a ride (err… run) it has been! Through injuries, lost faith and motivation, accidental beer binges (long story) and seeming setbacks, I finally made it through to complete my first Marathon today. I had to learn a lot of things about what my body would put up with (less than I thought), had to explore much my body can take (more than I thought), and had to laugh about a lot of things I couldn’t change (which somehow increased the hilarity).

Now let me reiterate what others have told me: This approach to marathon running is not recommended, and you should always consult a medical professional before you do something of this magnitutde. I think I only got away with it because I’d already done a lot of regular cardio and as a result was pretty healthy. That, and I’m colossally stubborn and am a firm believer in Mind over Body.

Having said that, if anyone wants to follow in my footsteps (remember: bad idea), here’s the training plans I used:

1. Couch-to-5K Running Plan
   This plan is unlike others because it doesn’t slowly build up distance, it instead assumes that any human being can walk 30 minutes. It then starts injecting short periods of running into that 30 minutes, and after a few iterations of increasing the duration stitches them all together into one continuous effort… which happens to be 30 minutes of continuous running. If you’re running a 10 minute mile (a respectable pace) this’ll get you your 5K.
   
   
2. Mileage Buildup Plan
   At this point, you can easily run 3 miles on a regular basis, and you’ll quickly realize that extending it by another mile is a lot less effort than you might think (This is why many long-distance runners are fairly blase about anything less than 18). The reason I took on this plan was because I liked running enough to make it a regular thing, but not enough to really start training for a major race. With a 10-mile regular run as the final goal, I figured I’d be set to try something if the mood struck me.
   
   
3. Half Marathon Training Plan
   Peer pressure finally won over and I decided to do a race. This particular plan came up on Google, so I switched to it in the middle of the previous plan because I thought it’d be a neat thing to do. Fact is I was kinda sick of running without a concrete goal or race (the 5K actually had me run two races) so it came at just the right time.
   
   
4. Marathon Training Plan
   Unfortunately, I got injured during the Half training, so I ended up volunteering instead (For details, see the “Stupid Shit I Did” section below). After going through a few weeks of recovery (and let me tell you, endorphin withdrawal really, really sucks), my colleague Hanna mentioned that she was thinking of training for the USAF Marathon, and… well, by this time I’d caught the bug. So off I go to look for a marathon training plan, and wouldn’t you know it: This one actually started one week from the day I started searching.

Things to think about

First of all, remember that you need to be very candid with yourself about both your time availability and your commitment to running. Yes, a Marathon is the most fantastifrabulous goals of all of them (so much that I think we should replace the electoral college with a cross-country relay), but if your actual goal is just getting healthier and working on your endurance and cardiovascular system, a regular running regime will do you just fine.

Secondly, once you get up to the longer distances you will realize that running is painful… at least for the beginner. Mostly this is because you and your body haven’t quite come to terms yet on the equipment, the schedule, the distance or the fact that you’re doing this in the first place, but remember that long-distance-running is an endurance sport, which means enduring exhaustion, pain, injury and all kinds of other nastiness to get to your goal. Alternatively, you can just keep in mind that the first guy who ran one… died. How’s that for a reality check.

But most of all, and this is absolutely critical: Be resilient and proactive about bad stuff that happens- the worst thing you can do is ignore something that’s not going well, because it’ll derail you quickly. There’s no point in being a martyr when a little education and a little trip to the pharmacy will set you straight.

Having said that, most of the other advice I have to give I’m not really qualified for, so go forth and Google. The only things I am perfectly happy sharing with you is the blooper reel, which shall be titled:

Stupid Shit I Did Which You Shouldn’t

1. I bought my first pair of shoes online, without fitting them. As a web geek, it’s really easy to trust the sizes provided to you by a retailer, but nothing… I mean NOTHING will screw your feet up faster than a pair of shoes that’s not right for you. A running shoe has a very different fit from something you’ll wear to the office.
2. I thought I’d be all kinds of awesome and, rather than take rest days, repeat the previous day’s training regimen so that I’d be running every day and thus get fitter, faster. This, combined with the shoe issue and my own naivite, lead to…
3. …the fact that I didn’t realize I was getting shin splints, and thus ignored them, resulting in the injury mentioned above. Splints are actually a fairly common problem with me, and is usually the sign to get a new set of shoes or switch to the other pair, but in this case was just a matter of me having absolutely no clue about all the pitfalls that could befall runners. Verdict? Stress fracture in my left shin, and I was out for the count.
4. I thought it’d be an incredibly bright idea to explore a new running trail for one of my important major long runs (the 18 miler, second to last). Most of my running up until that point was in fairly easy suburban trails, so heading out to a brand new place to explore a new exciting trail… which turned out to be incredibly hilly and a royal pain in the posterior… was maybe not the best thing to do.
5. And lastly, I forgot vaseline for the Marathon itself. No, I’m not finishing that story.

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