Marathon Training

Twin Cities Marathon is almost here. It's been years since I've done a structured training plan for a marathon, and the first time since high school that I've incorporated weightlifting into my training.

Going into this training cycle I planned on getting to a reasonably high weekly mileage, and I was actually able to up my mileage a little more than I was planning. I managed an average of just over 44 miles a week in 14 weeks of training, and my peak week was 67 miles.

Besides running more miles than I have in years, I've also been hitting some pretty solid workouts. For a lot of my training cycle, I did some solid tempo runs between 20 and 30 minutes, and an interval workout just about every week. In 14 weeks of training, I only bailed on two workouts as my legs just weren't feeling it those days.

Besides the tempo runs and interval workouts, I also got in some good long runs. I did three long runs of 20 miles or more, and did a handful of long runs where I ran the last few miles at goal marathon pace.

My highlight long run was a two mile warmup, racing a half marathon at 6:39/mile pace, four easy miles, then two miles at goal marathon pace for a total of 21 miles.

I've really enjoyed this training block, and a big part of that was getting to train with my kiddos. Quite a few times this summer I did the first part of an easy run with my 10 year-old, and as I've mentioned before, he biked with me on several of my long runs. My six year-old daughter also joined me on her bike on a couple of my runs. On our last outing, we were going along and she said, "Three miles is my record."

I said, "How about we go four miles?"

She said, "Let's do six." And she did do six miles. It was great.

It's been a solid three-and-a-half months of training, and I'm feeling pretty good going into the Twin Cities Marathon. I'll give my goals for the race in my next post.

Healthy Human Race Half Marathon

Three weeks before the Twin Cities Marathon, I decided to do a tune-up race and run a half marathon. I'd done a few 5Ks in this training cycle, but I knew a half marathon would give me a more accurate gauge on how fast I could race a marathon.

The morning of the race I decided to ride my bike to the start to get in a little warmup and avoid having to mess with parking. With the days getting shorter, I had to dig through my bike stuff to find my headlight, and I ended up doing the first half of my half hour ride in the dark. 

The race started at 7 AM, and I got to the start with enough time to run a two mile warm up.

After the little jog, I got lined up and chatted with an old friend from a running club in the twin cities. 

The race started, and I settled into what I thought would be a good pace. After a couple miles, I checked my watch and noticed that I was running just a couple of seconds per mile slower than I had been planning.

I was able to pick up the pace a bit, and I felt like I was moving along at a challenging but somewhat comfortable pace. It was a pretty small field, and there were only a couple of people running close to me, and after around five miles I was running by myself other than one guy who was about 30 seconds behind me for most of the race.

The course was pretty flat and I enjoyed running through various parks and along the Zumbro River. The aid stations were adequately spaced, and I took water and Gatorade along with a few Pure Fuel Maple Syrup gels.

With a couple of miles left, I was feeling pretty good and was able to pick up the pace for the last couple miles. I ended up finishing in 1:27:07. My 5K of 19:06 gave me a VDOT equivalent time of 1:27:42, so I feel like my fitness has continued to improve during this training cycle.

Laura and the kids came for the finish of the race, and it was great having them cheer for me as I wrapped up the race.

Like I said, it was a small race, so the Healthy Human Race wasn't overly competitive, but I still felt good about finishing as the sixth place male and second in my age group. My 1:27 was the fastest I've run a half since running the Pensacola Beach Half Marathon in January of 2018, and almost 10 minutes faster than the last half marathon I raced, the Louisiana Half Marathon, in January of 2025.

So, I'm feeling like my training has gone well and I'm feeling optimistic about the Twin Cities Marathon in two weeks. I'll give a recap of my training for Twin Cities in my next post.

Training Update

Training for the Twin Cities Marathon has been going great! Better than I expected. I didn't think I would be in as good of shape as I'm in when I started training seriously a few months ago.

One big key to my success has been my lack of injuries. My foot has been a little sore off and on, but it hasn't hindered my running at all. I also had one day where I started a run and my knee hurt bad enough that I wasn't able to run. I was afraid that I might be derailed, but I took two days off and my knee was fine afterwards.

My weightlifting has also been going OK. I haven't been making big improvements, but I think the strength training has still helped me stay healthy and improved my speed.

I've done four 5Ks since I've started this training plan, and I've gotten faster on each one. I ran 21:32, 20:44, 19:13, and 19:06.

One thing I've really enjoyed during this training cycle is doing my long runs with my kiddo. He's biked with me for 13, 14, 18, and 19 miles. Not only has he provided good company on two hour+ runs, he also carries the water. We usually talk about camping and fishing, but occasionally touch on other topics.

Tomorrow I'll be racing the Healthy Human Race Half Marathon. I've got a goal pace in mind, so we'll see what happens.

If you're interested in my training in detail, here's a link to my training plan for this year's Twin Cities Marathon:

Twin Cities Marathon Training Plan