Change

Changing your life starts with changing your mind...

 

It's the end of May, and I've run 147 miles this month.  Not a nice round number, but for those who know me well...at least it's not prime.  :)

That did NOT include the expected 21-miler I had planned.  I began working with a coach, who pulled the plug on my add a mile/month plan.  He says his job is to get me to the MCM start line injury-free and that doing a 20+ mile run monthly is too great a risk.  Even though I think he's being a bit overprotective, it's still kind of sweet. 

Giving up an idea that I've been holding onto for nearly a year was harder than running 20 miles.  Yet, I recognize maybe there's a reason no one else trains that way (besides the fact that it would take too long!).  I've relinquished control of my training plan and the chance to use training for my first marathon as a grand experiment. A change in approach and a change in me--being willing to surrender and adapt.

The other big change is my marathon goal.  So many people say your goal for your first marathon should simply be to finish.  I have a secondary goal of finishing feeling fantastic (to the degree that such is possible after running 26.2 miles), figuring that if I at least feel human afterward, my first marathon need not be my only marathon and I can work on speed later.  But you have to put an estimated time on the registration form, so when I signed up back in January, I said I hoped to finish in 5 hours.  At that point, the McMillan run calculator was predicting a time closer to 5.5 based on my then personal record for 13.1, so I was hoping to take a half hour off in the next 9 months of training.  But I blew my January PR away by 22 minutes at the Cowtown Half in February and took another 9 minutes off at Heels & Hills in May.  Based on my last race, McRun predicted a 4.5 hour marathon.

The wheels started turning, and I did the math.  I'm already down 20 pounds since January and hope to lose another 20 by the end of October.  If it's true that you take 2 seconds off your pace for every pound lost, the weight loss alone would get me close to 4.  Add in 6 months of training with speed work and endurance runs, and I realized my original goal of a 5-hour marathon was no longer big enough. 

They say a good goal should excite you...and scare you a little.  So after crunching the numbers, I recalibrated my expectations and set my sights on a 4-hour marathon.  I asked my coach if he thought I was crazy.  A huge grin spread across his face as he told me yes, I am crazy, and that's a very good thing.  :)

As with giving up the mile/month plan, raising the bar on my finishing time is not just about changing the goal...it's about a change in me.  Early on, coach asked me if I would rather set a goal I know I can meet and enjoy guaranteed success or set a higher goal I might fall short of, risking failure for a greater sense of glory if I succeed.  Originally, I would have chosen the former, but that has shifted.  Initially, I wanted to play it safe.  And back when McRun said 5.5, even shooting for 5 felt a tad daring.  But when I saw my progress in less than 4 months, I realized that 4 might be possible and that my time would be a heck of a lot faster if my goal was 4 rather than 5.  So what if I come in at 4:06?  Can I be happy with that?  Yeah, I think I can.  Better to shoot for 4 and run 4:06 than shoot for 5 and run 4:41, right?  

Changing my goal has reinvigorated me and brought fresh excitement to my training.  In addition, there have been plenty of other changes recently:

- My body is changing, in part because so are my eating habits. 

- My running has changed; walk breaks used to be a staple in my long runs, and I haven't taken a single walk break on a long run since I started working with my coach a month or so ago.  Last Sunday, I ran 16 miles--nearly 3 hours straight. 

- I was forced to change shoes (same model, just a new pair) when the old ones finally gave out after 400 miles. 

- I tried a new fuel (UCAN) and decided that I will not be making that change permanent because apparently, corn starch is like poison to me. 

- The weather has changed, and my body is learning to adapt to the summer heat. 

- I've increased my mental toughness--pushing myself through one workout when I was dog tired and through another even when my HR was in the 190s!  (So much for the formula that says my max is 186!)  

 

Change is all part of the journey, which is never more apparent than when I look at how much I've changed in the past 15 years.  And I know there will be other changes to come.  I don't know exactly what they'll be, but I'm learning to embrace the experience and am excited to find out.  :)

This month's post would not be complete without sharing a pic from what will probably end up being my most memorable run of the month: a 12-miler up and down the waterfront on my trip to Seattle.  Dad & I went to check Safeco Field off the bucket list, and the run with this view was definitely a highlight. 

Next up: Wounded Warrior Half Marathon on June 9!