Marathon training is on a (hopefully) brief hiatus at the moment while I sort out a couple of issues that have arisen starting last week.  One I can’t explain, but another is a major problem.  There have been a series of incidents (including a bad scare to someone close to me) with creepers targeting female runners in my neighborhood and the neighborhood just next door, including right on some routes I run regularly.  As a result I’m not comfortable running in my neighborhood right now and I’m trying to figure out a solution, which might involve driving to another neighborhood to run (cumbersome) or else getting a very short-term gym membership.  I can’t let the not-running go on much longer if I’m going to be ready for this marathon, so I’ve got to figure it out.  Anyway, here are weeks three and four.

June 29: Rest.  Recovering from the Fifty Yard Finish Half Marathon.

June 30: Rest.  More recovery.

July 1: Rest.  I like to give myself plenty of time to get back to 100% after running a half, but tomorrow I’ll be ready to go again.

July 2: 3 mile run.  First run back after the half, feeling pretty good.

July 3: 3 mile run.  Picked up a bruised toe during the half and while it doesn’t hurt, it looks disgusting.

July 4: Rest.  Lots of time in the car driving to a wedding.  Yay for the happy couple, boo for all of the driving.

July 5: Rest.  We have a big adventure planned for tomorrow, so we just relax and enjoy a day at the lake today.

July 6: 6.2 mile hike up a mountain!  We climb our first two Adirondack high peaks, Cascade and Porter, which is a major workout but the views are worth every bead of sweat.

July 7-11: NO RUNNING.  Between the creeper and not having a good shoe option right now (I tried to return my too-small shoes, but they didn’t have my size in stock.  I’m still waiting) I have not found a way to run.  I’m trying to figure these issues out because if I’m going to run a marathon in October, I have to train!  I know they say that you can’t be afraid of the weirdos because that’s letting them win, but, well, it’s another story when you know there’s a creep out there targeting women on the routes you run, at the times you run.  I’m just not going to put myself in that situation.  But I have to find another way.

July 12: Stroller Strides!  Between the instructor being away at a conference, and then my half, and then traveling over the fourth of July weekend, I hadn’t been to class in three weeks.  It felt so good to get back and get in a good strength workout with my favorite Buffalo moms.

So that’s that.  Week 3 went pretty much as I had planned for after a half marathon, but the wheels totally came off in week 4.  I’m working on putting them back on – here’s hoping I will be back out on the roads soon.

Get ready for a photo-heavy post!  Last weekend, hubby and I achieved a long-cherished dream of ours: climbing our first two Adirondack high peaks.  And we started on another long-cherished dream (and one that will take much longer to realize): becoming Adirondack 46ers.

The Adirondack Mountains were our backyard when we were growing up in northeastern New York State.  I lived about two hours south of the mountains, but my family made it to our lake house in the foothills almost every weekend during the spring, summer and fall, and we spent many happy winter days skiing Gore and Whiteface Mountains up north.  Hubby lived in the Adirondack region itself and has fond memories of the area, too.  For years I’d harbored a secret ambition to be a “46er” – a.k.a. one of the elite club of hikers who has summited all 46 of the Adirondack high peaks – and when we decided to move back to New York State – even though we were headed for Buffalo, not Albany or Saratoga – we made a commitment to try to achieve that goal.

For our first two mountains, we chose Cascade and Porter.  At number 36 and 38 on the elevation list, and billed as the two most “accessible,” “approachable,” and “family friendly” mountains, we decided they were the place to start our Adirondack climbing journey – especially since we were toting a little hiker with us.  Peanut was joining us on the first of our high peaks adventures.  We realized that we would not be able to take her up every mountain with us (some are simply too technically challenging to permit carrying a toddler up with any degree of psychological comfort) but we wanted her to come along at least for this excursion.

We arrived at the Cascade trailhead around 9:30 a.m. – later than we’d hoped for – and signed into the trail register by 10:00 – much later than we’d hoped for.  Things were starting off rocky and got even rockier, if you’ll pardon the pun, when we realized that the trail was basically three miles of boulders straight up.  I was able to negotiate the trail without much trouble – short as I am – and I breezed right up.  Hubby, however, was struggling almost from the beginning.  Turns out, carrying thirty pounds (6 pounds of backpack and 24 pounds of child) is tough enough, but when your load is wiggling, kicking you, falling asleep with her head hanging out of the pack, telling you stories about baby sea lions, and basically just being the dearest and most precious thing to your heart, you really care about not falling down… even as your balance is impaired by the wiggling and kicking and napping in impossible positions.

(^Snapped after I’d pushed her head back into the middle of the pack, and approximately 0.3 minutes before it flopped out again.)

We took our time up the steep, rocky trail (the picture above was about as mild as it got), stopping for breaks as needed and letting the faster groups go by us.  After about 1.8 miles – which took far longer than it would have had it been an adults-only hike – we came upon the false summit of Cascade and our first views of the day.

Even I was a little wobbly-kneed scrambling up over the bald ledge, but the views were well worth every anxious moment.  Just past the false summit we came upon the trail junction between Cascade and Porter.

Our first Adirondack summit was only 0.3 miles away!  We steeled ourselves for a push to the summit.

The summit of Cascade is bald, thanks to a massive fire in 1903 which not only destroyed the vegetation, but burned away the soil as well.  Some delicate Alpine botany has taken hold up there again, and it’s beautiful but fragile – so hikers are well warned to walk only on bare rock and never ever ever step on the grass, the flowers, or even the dirt.

We scrambled up the bare rock face and reached our first Adirondack high peak summit.

Success!

The views were astonishing.  I knew that they would be – of course – but actually standing on top of one of the Adirondack high peaks and looking out over the park was beyond anything I could have imagined.  I truly felt on top of the world.

(Hello there, Mount Marcy.  I’m coming for you.)

We chatted briefly with the summit steward – a volunteer park ranger of sorts, whose job is to stand on top of the mountain, welcome hikers, take family photos (he gets the credit for the shot above), answer questions, and remind you not to walk on the grass.  He pointed out the peaks in the distance for us and then directed us to a ledge where we could sit out of the wind, have a snack and enjoy the view before heading on to our next stop.

We took our time, drank in the views and then started down the mountain.

We reached the trail junction in no time, descended into a col, and began the brief climb back up Porter – Cascade’s nearest neighbor and our second high peak.

Porter is not nearly as busy as Cascade, even though it’s right next door.  There was no summit steward, no crowds – we had the place to ourselves, a major difference from the crowds swarming over Cascade – and not even a benchmark.  I confirmed that we had summited when I spotted signs for the trail leading to Marcy Airfield and the Garden.

Porter is a wooded summit, unlike Cascade’s bald top, but it still affords 360 degree views.  It was a bit less spectacular than Cascade, but well worth the extra 1.4 miles round trip to add it to our day.

We even got a view back to Cascade and spent some time marveling at the fact that we were just there and now we’re here.

Exhausted, but happy, family on top of Porter, with two Adirondack high peaks under our belt!

Cascade Mountain: Elevation 4,098 feet / 36 of 46 ADK high peaks

Porter Mountain: Elevation 4,059 feet / 38 of 46 ADK high peaks

Fun Facts About The Adirondacks, Cascade and Porter

• The Adirondacks are the only mountains in the eastern United States that are not geologically Appalachian.  They are the southernmost section of the Canadian Shield, a geologically distinct area.
• The Adirondack Park is the only forest and wildlife area to have Constitutional protection.  Other parklands and wildlife refuges are protected by statute, but the Adirondacks’ protection is built into the New York State Constitution.
• Porter Mountain is named for Noah Porter, a Yale professor who was the first person to summit.
• There are traditionally 46 high peaks – peaks over 4,000 feet in elevation – in the Adirondack region.  (Mount Marcy is the highest, at 5,343 feet, and is also the highest point in New York State.)  In fact, there is at least one mountain (McNaughton) that does have a summit over 4,000 feet but didn’t make the cut, and some of the traditional ADK high peaks are actually slightly under 4,000 feet elevation, because of mis-measuring about 100 years ago.  ADK 46ers tend to be a tradition-loving bunch, though, so they’ve kept the list as-is.
• Cascade is named for a series of waterfalls on the mountain, and is close to the bobsledding venue from the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

(Facts came from our guidebook, from lakeplacid.com, and from the summit steward on Cascade.)

Lessons Learned

• We did not carry enough water.  Hubby ended up drinking almost our entire supply, leaving me pretty uncomfortably thirsty, especially on the trip down.  I didn’t begrudge him the water – he had our daughter on his back, after all – but I did need some of it.  In the future, I’ll make sure that I have at least one bottle for myself.
• We did not get nearly as early a start as we needed to, especially given our slow pace climbing with a kid.  For future peaks we will need to get earlier starts – especially when we start getting into the “big” ones (ha, they’re all big) like Marcy, Algonquin, and Gothics.
• On that note… while it was fun having Peanut along, she is not invited on any more ADK high peak adventures until she can climb under her own steam.  Cascade and Porter were billed as family-friendly… but I really didn’t think they were.  There was too much scrambling, too much technical climbing, to make a climb with Peanut “a walk in the park.”  I saw plenty of families with kids ages 5 and older handling the mountain with no trouble, and there were a few other families struggling along with younger ones in backpacks, but… it wasn’t for us.  I did not believe Cascade was nearly as “easy” as our guidebook claimed, and if that was the “approachable” peak… my goodness.  This journey will be adults-only for quite some time.

Two high peaks down, forty-four to go!  We’re already planning our next trip up one of the peaks (we’re thinking Giant Mountain next, but it won’t be until the fall so we’re still exploring options).  Have you ever climbed one of the Adirondack high peaks?  Or a mountain closer to home?

Well, as I said a couple of weeks ago, the time for sitting around has passed and it’s time to get serious about marathon training.  I’m roughly following Hal Higdon’s novice marathon training plan, with a couple of tweaks (mainly just moving runs around to days that make more sense for my schedule).  These first two weeks, though, look a little different because I am starting this training cycle about two weeks away from my third half marathon.  That’s why there are double digit runs so early in the cycle – now that the Fifty Yard Finish Half Marathon is behind me, I’m jumping back into Hal’s marathon training schedule as it was written, and the runs will be shorter for awhile before they start building back up.  Here’s what my first two weeks of marathon training (and last two weeks of half training) have looked like:

June 15: 9 mile run.  This was a hot one.  I started the run at 1:00ish in the afternoon and there was not a cloud in the sky.  I learned a lesson from a disastrous 8 miler last week and brought water with me, but still, I was baking.  I think the lesson to take from this one is that naptime long runs worked great over the winter but for a summer training cycle, I’m going to need to get these done earlier in the day.  Not looking forward to those early wakeups.  Still, I’m nine miles stronger than I was.

June 16: Rest.  And much needed.

June 17: 3 mile run.  This was a tough one.  I didn’t sleep well the night before (was up brooding half the night) and didn’t really want to get up and run.  But I told myself not to cheat Hal on mileage so early in training and dragged myself out the door.  It turned out one of those runs that was a struggle from the very first step, but I stuck with it and got it done.  Hope tomorrow’s is better.

June 18: 3 mile run.  What a difference a good night’s sleep and a new pair of running shoes make!  I was thoroughly done with my old dead shoes, so I stopped by Fleet Feet on the way home from work yesterday and got a new pair – Brooks Adrenaline again, but the 2014 model.  My legs and back felt so much better on this run and I was even breathing easier.  Now if we could just get rid of this humidity, everything would be perfect.

June 19: 3 mile run.  Nothing particularly remarkable about this run.  Just another early wakeup and another three miles closer to marathon day.

June 20: Rest.  Long day at work, so it was a good day for a rest day.

June 21: Cross-training.  Stroller Strides was cancelled (the instructor was away at a conference learning new ways to  torture  inspire us) and I should have done something more strenuous, but I wasn’t particularly motivated, so I made do with a family walk and some light yoga.

June 22: 10 mile run.  I applied the lessons I’ve learned (re-learned?) over the past few weeks – ran early, brought water, took in fuel – and the result was this was about as good as a long run gets.  I was still breathing easy up to the last step, my legs felt great, and I had energy to burn even still at the end.  (We went out for another family walk to the juice bar after and I felt just fine.)  If there was ever a confidence-building run one week before a half marathon, this was it.

June 23: Rest.  Just a light family stroll and some bunny-spotting before dinner.

June 24: 3 mile run.  Banged out a few humid laps around the pond near my house, and felt like I was back to running in Old Dominion.  Most notable thing about this run was all the wildlife I saw: two families of geese, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, a bunny, and my friend the great blue heron (three times!).  Oh, and a beautiful red-winged blackbird (I looked him up online at home after the run) who made me wish I was a birder like Amal and Susan.

June 25: 3 mile run.  Three drizzly miles done, and there are no more runs between me and the starting line of my THIRD half marathon!

June 26: Rest.  Time to recharge my legs and obsess over Saturday’s weather forecast.

June 27: Rest.  And race prep!  Packet pick-up, laying out my race-day clothes, tracking down safety pins, and hydrating, hydrating, hydrating.

June 28: Fifty Yard Finish Half Marathon.  And a shiny new PR to show for my efforts!

I’d say that was a successful first two weeks of marathon training.  Now it’s all about getting into the plan.  I have no races until mid-August (and then it’ll be a race every few weeks until marathon day) so it’s time to buckle down and log some miles.

Welp.  It’s time.  Marathon day is looming in just four short months, and there can be no more procrastinating: I’ve got to put sole to asphalt in a serious way.  I’m thinking I’ll share a bit about marathon training every couple of weeks, not because I need the accountability – believe me, I’ll be going through these workouts; the last thing I want is to be undertrained at the start line – but just because I think it’ll be fun.  And after all, this is a blog about the things that I’m doing, and now… gulp… I’m marathon training.  (Of course, don’t consider this or any other training or running post to be expert advice.  Hello, marathon virgin over here!  Consult your doctor and make the decisions that are right for you, not me.)

Picking a Plan

I guess that once you’ve gone through enough marathons you sort of know what to do and you don’t feel like you need to strictly follow a training plan.  I’m at that point with 5Ks – I just bang ’em out.  Even for my last half, I pretty much made it up as I went along – but I had already run a ten-miler and a half, so I knew the basics of what I needed to do to get through 13.1 miles.  But 26.2?  Yeah, we’ll be consulting an expert on that one.

I was torn between two training plans.  There was Hal Higdon, who I know and trust.  I used Hal’s novice half marathon plan to train for both the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler and the Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon and made it across both finish lines with a smile on my face – success!  My first thought was, Hal is the guy to get me through 26.2 miles.  Then I picked up Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea’s Train Like a Mother, which includes training plans for every distance from the 5K to the marathon.  For awhile I flirted with the idea of using their “Marathon – Finish It” plan, but ultimately decided that it was too involved for me at this point.  I was looking for something reeeeeeeally beginner-friendly.  Hal it was: Marathon Novice 1.

Tailoring the Plan

One thing about training plans is this: they’re never exactly what you need.  Even a really good one, like Hal’s, won’t be quite right for you personally.  They’re written to appeal to the widest variety of a certain subset of runners.  For me, there were a few things that jumped out as necessary changes:

• Hal suggests running a half marathon in week 8 (which makes sense… it’s halfway through the program, so you should be able to run half the distance, right?).  I do plan to run 13.1 in week eight, but I also have one to do in week two; my final two weeks of half marathon training are going to overlap with the first two weeks of marathon training.  I’m fine with that, since I’ll be conditioned for the extra mileage, and once I have that half out of the way I’m planning to sync up with Hal’s suggested mileage.
• Hal’s mileage doesn’t always coincide with my race schedule.  There are some weekends that he calls for a sixteen-mile run, for example, and I have a 10K on the calendar.  On those weekends, I plan to run the race and make up any extra mileage before or after.  (Ideally before, so that I can really be done for the day when I cross the finish line.  That’s a nice thing about training in Buffalo: you don’t have to start a race at the crack of dawn to avoid the heat, the way you do in Virginia, so I will actually have time to get some of those miles in before the gun goes off.)
• Hal suggests running long on Saturday and cross-training on Sunday.  Monday’s a rest day.  On my training calendar, I’ve flipped those days – just a personal preference for me.  I’m more sore after a long run than after cross-training, so I like to run long on Sunday and then recover at my desk all day on Monday.  And I have been going to Stroller Strides classes on Sunday, which makes for perfect cross-training – Hal doesn’t include any strength workouts on this particular plan, and I want to make sure I keep up with those.  So I’m planning to cross-train with Stroller Strides on Saturdays, run long on Sunday, and stick with Hal’s schedule for midweek.
• Hal doesn’t include any speedwork, which I understand.  It’s a very basic program, designed to get nervous novices across their first marathon finish line injury-free.  In fact, speedwork is one thing that often scares me away from a training plan; I have a hard time deciphering the instructions and I usually decide it’s too complicated and pile on the junk miles instead.  But I’d like to do a little bit of low pressure speedwork, since I think that helped me in the Turkey Trot.  So I’m tentatively planning to do some very simple intervals on Thursday (sticking with Hal’s mileage).

Nutrition

I’ve heard it said that triathlon is actually four disciplines, not three: swimming, biking, running and nutrition.  Well, this is a marathon, not a triathlon, but I still want to eat for the best possible performance.  What I’ve found works best for me is to eat “close to nature” – by which I mean eating foods as close to their natural state as possible, and when foods are processed, I either do the processing myself or I can read and understand the ingredient lists.  (I think that’s generally a good eating philosophy, probably, for anyone.)  Periodically I like to hit my “nutritional reset button” with a Whole30, and I think July will probably be a good time for that – any later and we’re getting into longer and longer runs, and I’m going to want to have a less restricted pantry to fuel those.  The rest of the time, I’m simply going to focus on making the best possible choices, picking fruits and vegetables over other foods whenever possible, and having a well-stocked healthy fridge at my fingertips.

Motivation

At the end of the day, I’m doing this for fun.  I want to do well, but let’s face it – marathon training takes a lot of time and effort, and I wouldn’t devote the energy if I wasn’t excited about the endeavor.  My goal for the race is to finish (within the cutoff time of 5.5 hours) with a smile on my face – that’s it!  I’ll be happy as long as I can say I did my best and I finished.  I’ve had some not-great racing experiences and I’ve had some that were just a blast.  I’m pumped and ready to go!

Have you ever trained for a marathon?  Did you use a plan or did you wing it?