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Charleston Marathon

January 15, 2011

A drove of DoppelLaufers will be meeting face to face for the first time when we invade Charleston next month for the Riverfront Race Festival. We will be running virtual non-virtual, non-virtual virtual, live, real, in-person (I’m at a loss for words for a change, but I think you get the idea) marathons and half marathons to kick off the winter season of virtual racing. The race will be followed, I’m sure, by the consumption of massive quantities of medicinal hops to help soothe our aching muscles.

I’m a little worried about how cold the weather will be for this race, but Mother Nature has graciously provided near record lows for Florida this week to help me acclimate. How thoughtful of her.

Wait a minute – I need to crank up this space heater a little.

Ahhhh.

Where was I?

Oh yeah - training. I modified another Hal Higdon Marathon program to set up a training schedule over the next few weeks. Here it is:

I also analyzed my last few months of training to try to figure out why I hit the wall at the Space Coast Marathon.

This is what I’m thinking:

• Overconfidence – shooting for 4 hours for my first marathon and starting out too fast.
• Inexperience – especially relating to eating and drinking during the race.
• Inadequate speed work and hill training – my training was pretty light on these workouts, mostly because of a bout with ITBS half way through and the fear of a recurrence that lasted for several weeks.

Fortunately, the sadistic leaders of WVR have scheduled a reprise of the notoriously difficult Victoria Park meets Deland Hills route next weekend. From my quasi-paranoid, self-centered, delusional world perspective, I know they did this solely to address the deficiency in MY training. So I will offer apologies in advance to the innocent neophytes who will be unwittingly subjected to this tortuous ordeal for the first time.

Good luck.  You may need it. ;-}