This weekend, I was in Kansas City for a Chiefs game. A lot of my family (including my neice) live in KC, so I go up there every fall for a few games. I'm heading up next weekend, too.
I was worried what these weekend trips would do to my training schedule. I decided to see if I could find a running/training group like I have in Dallas to run with. I found "Runner's Edge", and Kansas City running group. It was AWESOME!
The weather was perfect (a little cool, but not too bad). I ran with a couple of ladies who were going to be "pacers" for the Kansas City Marathon in 2 weeks. They are trying to train to finish the marathon at exactly 5 hours, 10 minutes.
We started at 7 am (I LOVED THAT!!! I hate starting at 5:30 or 6 am), and the coach has a philosophy that all his 400+ runners follow: (1) start slow to ease into it; and (2) NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOU ARE, walk 1 minute after each mile. This includes what you do in the actual marathon.
The philosophy is to make your body better able to handle those later, longer miles. And quite frankly, it worked. This course was ridiculously hilly. The last mile was straight uphill. Steep, let me tell you. But I felt better at the end of this run than any other long run I've trained all summer. I felt fantastic. And I could have kept going (but I was happy to end at 14.2).
I am in KC next weekend, so I'm training with them again. But I think I'm definitely incorporating this philosophy into my own training from now on. It certainly gave me a lot of confidence and because I felt so much better, I felt like I can definitely reach the goal of 26.2.
Special thanks to my new friends Amy and Kristy the "pacers." Between the 2 of them, they've run 12 marathons, and had great advice and tips. It was great making new friends and learning new things in this sport.
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