Boston Marathon Training – Week 5 in Review

Hello blog world! How was your long weekend if you had one? Mine was very good. Just the right mix of busy and relaxation. Before I get into that, I want to do a quick recap of my fifth week of training for the Bostom Marathon because I felt as though I made it over a mental and possibly physical hump this week.

I had a rough start to training. My first two weeks, I could only summon the energy to run 14 and 17.5 miles in total. Not ideal and not how I wanted to start this training process.

Things started to get better in week three – for weeks three, four and five, I hit my weekly mileage total and ran five days a week. And then finally, last week I started to hit a groove where every run didn’t feel so tedious and running five times a week was almost actually routine. Here’s how my training is looking so far:

Last week, I ran 3.5 miles at the gym on the treadmill on Monday; 6.12 miles outside in Central Park on Tuesday morning; 4 miles at the gym on Thursday; a frigid (I’m talking under 5 degrees) 12 mile long run with Lauren on Saturday; and a 5.29 mile run outside again on Sunday.

I’m finding that mixing the treadmill with outdoor runs is keeping me from becoming bored with either one.

A quick word on the 12 miles run upstate this weekend. That was officially the coldest weather I’ve ever run in. Lauren and I took the cold weather VERY seriously and bundled appropriately. I wore my arctic tights (the warmest things ever), ski socks under my tights, a Nike base layer, a really warm hooded sweatershirt, a hat, gloves and a neckwarmer that I actually pinned to my hat so that it would stay up and cover my face. We looked fabulous:

We may have looked ridiculous, but I was very warm and toasty with alll of this on. The neck warmer covering my face was crucial! I was so happy I brought it and thought to pin it up.

For any people training from spring marathons out there – what are your winter running tips and tricks?

I’m feeling like winter is looking particularly messy this year and I can’t seem to remember how I made it through training last winter. I’m taking it week by week and coping with each weather set-back as necessary. I will say that winter training definitely makes you appreciate it when the spring weather finally rolls around. 🙂 Happy winter running all!