Things I Did Differently This Training Cycle to Run My 2:44 Marathon

It’s been over a week since my race at CIM and I’m finally starting to feel back to normal. No more limping and going up and down the stairs is MUCH easier now! I took the past 7 days completely off from exercise and this week I still won’t be doing any running. Depending on how I’m feeling and how much free time I have I may do some cross training like swimming, biking, hiking or strength work, but I’m going to play it by ear. Recovery after a marathon is so so important so I’m taking a nice break now before diving into another hard training cycle for track.

Over the past week I’ve had quite a few people ask me what changes I made during this training cycle that helped me run my Olympic Trials Qualifying time – which was a 22 minute PR! On the surface this sounds like a massive improvement but I see it as more of a performance improvement than a fitness improvement. I’ve been in shape to run a 2:50 in the past I just didn’t perform on race day so going into this cycle I chose to approach this marathon as if it was my first. I didn’t want my past, poor marathon performances to limit what I thought I was capable of. I resolved to just do all the training that my coach gave me and analyze my training closer to race day to determine what kind of fitness I was in. This mental shift was CRUCIAL for me and was by far the biggest change I made this training cycle.

In addition to this a made a few other important changes this cycle that led to my breakthrough at CIM.

1. I took a significant period of rest of serious running and training. Around the time that my husband and I were deciding whether or not it was time to have a baby I was starting to feel a little burnt out on running. I had been in serious training cycle after serious training cycle since middle school and while I still loved running I was ready for a little break. I ran throughout my pregnancy but kept things pretty low key and while I starting running again about 3.5 weeks after our daughter was born I didn’t hire a coach and start chasing PRs again until about 9 months after she was born. All-in-all that means I took a year and a half off from training, this time gave my body and more importantly my mind a break from the cycle of serious training and I really believe it did wonders for me when I decided it was time to start training again. 
2. I hired a coach that I trusted and who had had good results with other runners like me. I found my coach through one of my running friends. He is her boyfriend and coach and last track season I was just seeing her run PR after PR. I was impressed by the results that she was having under his coaching and after a few conversations with them at track meets I felt like he would be a great coach for me as well. We starting working together in April and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in my running recently. (He not only helped me qualify for the Trials at CIM, but his girlfriend and her sister also qualified by running 2:41 and 2:42 and he had two more athletes under 3 hours!) 
3. I’ve slowed down my easy runs. In college I used to be really good at running my easy runs around 7:45 pace but in the years after college I had kind of got sucked in to running my easy and recovery miles closer to 7 minutes. For this marathon training cycle my volume and intensity of training has been so high that on my recovery days I really needed to go sloooooow. This has enabled me to run faster and push harder on my workout and long run days.
4. I ran the mileage that worked for me! A few years ago I was working with a coach that had really rigid ideas of how much marathoners should run on a weekly basis and it was just too much for me. I was averaging above 80 and probably ran 6 (maybe more) long runs that were 20-22 miles long. That was way too much for me and I got to the race extremely over-trained and exhausted. This training cycle my coach and I worked together to come up with a plan that worked for my body in terms of mileage – I pretty much stayed in the 65-70 mile range with a few weeks at 75 and a peak week at 80. I also only did one 20 mile long run and one 22 mile long run. I came into race day feeling strong and fit but also fresh and ready to run fast!
5. We incorporated “speed”/marathon pace work into the long runs. During the last half of this cycle every single long run had some sort of marathon paced (or faster) work in them. A lot of times the marathon paced miles would be at the end of the long run on the last day of training that week.   
6. I took care of the little things. This training cycle I’ve really put an emphasis on doing the little things like my core exercises, hip strength/mobility and recovering proactively with things like Normatec (recovery boots), chiropractic adjustments and massages. One thing that I still was slacking on this cycle and I’m going to have to get better at to keep improving was having a serious/structured weight lifting routine.
7. I spent a lot of time on the mental side of training. I first realized the power of mental training in our Bradley Method Birthing Classes, Henri and I did a lot of practicing leading up to labor and the Bradley Method is all about relaxation through the pain, being present in the moment you are in and breathing through the contractions. Practicing these skills so much during pregnancy helped me be able to apply them effortlessly to my running since having my daughter. I’ve also read lots of books and articles and listened to podcasts about training the brain. I’m constantly working on being “in the mile I’m in” during my training and I’m practicing my mantras in my workouts. The other important mental shift I’ve made is not thinking about my running/training too much outside of my sessions. I let me coach think about the workouts/race schedule and I just put my head down and do the work. I can be an overthinker which makes me anxious so when I don’t need to be thinking about my training I shift my focus to other things like work, Lavinia, household chores, etc.