A marathon, and a half / Training: The beginning

Running a marathon has been a vague dream for years; something to complete in the far distant future when I become a proper runner. For the past few years I've watched the London Marathon wistfully, never seriously contemplating signing up, but dabbling in shorter races. I've managed a 10k every now and again, and even a half-marathon over three years ago. But I always found myself letting the training slide, picking up an injury, or just not committing. 

New Zealand is obviously a beautiful place to explore, which has its own impetus in making me run. But there were two main things which finally inspired me to sign up for a marathon: the BBC programme 'Mind over Marathon' and the podcast 'Tough Girl Challenges.' Hearing about the goals others were accomplishing around their daily challenges was inspiring, whether those challenges were related to mental health, family, work or physicality. I currently have the ability to prioritise my own goals and it's my responsibility to ensure I reach them. 

A marathon wasn't my original goal for this year. My original goal was to exercise consistently. I used to categorise myself as someone who was all or nothing in many aspects of my life, but I don't think this is true anymore. With consistency, I've become someone with a reasonable level of fitness, with reasonably low levels of stress at work, and energy to pursue my own interests. My work hours are still pretty long. I tutor twice a week, and on those days I leave at 6.30am, to return home gone 7 in the evening. I have to be dedicated to work out the logistics of fitting exercise in. I've tried some 5 am runs, which whilst being relatively enjoyable, have been too slow to be very beneficial (also Auckland has surprisingly few street lights and is very quiet for a capital city. Not ideal for running alone!). I've started doing some lunch time runs which are great when I can fit them in (teaching at a school is a definite plus). Having 3 HIIT sessions a week at work, after school, also leave little room for excuses. 

So what's the plan? I started the year with 2 runs a week, and over the past couple of weeks I've built up to 3. It's not particularly often, or particularly far, but it's regular. Running consistently has resulted in my PB in a 10k, and I'm ready for my next challenge. I've created a marathon plan based on one that I found on the 'Veggie Runners' blog http://www.veggierunners.com/2016/07/29/the-three-runs-a-week-marathon-training-plan-for-a-pb/. It's based on 3 runs a week, one tempo, one speed and one long run. I combine those runs with 3 metafit (HIIT) sessions a week, and a yoga class. I'm also trying to fit in a hike, or swim, or some rock-climbing now and again, although these other activities have been few and far between this month. 

And the final result? Well, I'll be running the North-Short Half-marathon on the 2nd of September, which is in 12 weeks time. This coincides perfectly with the 21km I have on my training plan for that weekend. And another 8 weeks after that, on the 29th of October I will be running the Auckland Marathon. So here I am, at the begging of my half, and full marathon training, clueless but committed, and incredibly excited to finally run a marathon.