A 5-Mile Trail Run: How I'm Maintaining My Fitness Through The Winter

    

Brandon and I ran in a 5-mile trail race on Saturday morning. 

1) The weather was BEAUTIFUL for a mid-November morning in Northeast Ohio. I couldn't have asked for anything better

2) Trails are much tougher than roads. Never underestimate that fact.

We live in the suburbs on the east side of Cleveland. There is nothing but roads and sidewalks around us. Trails are definitely a new [and FUN!] thing for me. Be that as it may, I started out way too fast for my trail-running abilities and had to slow waaaay down by the end of the race. We still finished admirably at 46:31 (although, I think the course was actually 4.7 miles). That put me at 9th in my age group...which, by the way, I'm in a totally new age group! I just looked up the results and I couldn't find my name, because I was looking in the 20-24 age group. Haha, whoops.

There was definitely a post-race breakfast that included delicious french fries and a trip to Main Street Cupcakes (sorry about the shoddy pictures, next investment will be a better camera)
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Let's just put it out there: I am planning on running the Cleveland Marathon next May. I say "planning" because in the last year I have signed up for two races I couldn't end up running because of my perpetual shin problems. I ran the Akron Marathon in 2009 and ended up with a tibial stress fracture by the end of training, because I didn't listen to my body. I ran through pain that started as shin splints and ended up sidelining me for months after the marathon. Not cool, Becca.

I just kept training because I wanted to say I did it. I was also scared to start and not be able to finish. So I just kept training. My full mileage.

So when I say I'm planning to run the marathon, I mean I'm going to start training in January, as if I'm going to run in May and play it by ear from there. I will probably try to follow Hal Higdon's Novice training plan, which looks something like this:

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
1	rest	3 m run	5 m pace	3 m run	rest	8	cross
2	rest	3 m run	5 m run	3 m run	rest	9	cross
3	rest	3 m run	5 m pace	3 m run	rest	6	cross
4	rest	3 m run	6 m pace	3 m run	rest	11	cross
5	rest	3 m run	6 m run	3 m run	rest	12	cross
6	rest	3 m run	6 m pace	3 m run	rest	9	cross
7	rest	4 m run	7 m pace	4 m run	rest	14	cross
8	rest	4 m run	7 m run	4 m run	rest	15	cross
9	rest	4 m run	7 m pace	4 m run	rest	11	cross
10	rest	4 m run	8 m pace	4 m run	rest	17	cross
11	rest	5 m run	8 m run	5 m run	rest	18	cross
12	rest	5 m run	8 m pace	5 m run	rest	13	cross
13	rest	5 m run	5 m pace	5 m run	rest	19	cross
14	rest	5 m run	8 m run	5 m run	rest	12	cross
15	rest	5 m run	5 m pace	5 m run	rest	20	cross
16	rest	5 m run	4 m pace	5 m run	rest	12	cross
17	rest	4 m run	3 m run	4 m run	rest	8	cross
18	rest	3 m run	2 m run	rest	rest	2 m run	Marathon

With a few tweaks...like doing run/walk training (for me,. run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute for the allotted time) on the Tuesday and Thursday shorter runs. Also maybe adding in a couple of track workouts to change it up a bit. There are no less than 5 colleges within a 5 mile radius of my house, so finding a track to get on, fortunately, isn't difficult for me.

Beginning my training in January means gearing up for marathon-training mileage by January. I'm not talking being able to run 20 miles by then, but right now I am probably averaging 10-12 miles a week. So if I keep that up, I'm going to be risking injury pretty quickly by jumping to 20-30 miles a week right away. Taking my last marathon training debacle into account, I DO NOT want to end up in a boot, unable to run for months again. No thank-you.

How am I going to get there?

1. Start adding on miles now. I hope to be able to run 8-10 miles at a time before I actually start my training. My longest run since my summer half marathons has been 6.4 miles, so I have a little ways to go, but I definitely have time. My goal is to add a bit of mileage to my longer weekend runs between now and January. 

2. Continute run/walk training. When I start the marathon training, I'm going to run 3 minutes, walk 2 minutes for the first couple of weeks, then I'm going to bump it up to run 4/walk 2, then finally run 4/walk 1. You'd be amazed at how good you'll feel when you train this way. It does wonders for injury prevention.

3. Crosstrain, crosstrain, crosstrain! I truly believe a big part of the reason I got injured last time I was in a big training period was because of my lack of crosstraining. Yoga became a huge part of my life when I couldn't run and now I try to find some time to practice a few days every week. Practicing yoga helps keep me grounded, and it helps keep me strong! Yoga and running are very complementary, provided you always listen to what your body is telling you. So, between my continued exploration into all things yoga, and a little core work here and there, hopefully I will have this crosstraining thing covered. Eventually I am going to get myself a used spinning bike and work that into the routine as well!

Have you trained through the winter for a spring race? What gets you out the door in the cold weather? I'd love to hear any advice on this topic!! Leave a comment or shoot me and email peacelovebagels [at] gmail [dot] com.