January Training Recap: The Month I Decided to Train for a Marathon

And the longest blog title of the year goes to me. But January was the month I decided to train for a marathon. As I mentioned in my newsletter, I had a great time running the Rose Bowl Half. I raised money for the McCourt Foundation and ran one of my fastest times in a year. Running had been going fairly well, and I was enjoying long runs, so I thought: why not?

And I decided to raise money for the McCourt Foundation and neurological diseases again. I was honestly nervous I would not be able to reach my goal and the minimum twice ($650), but I was truly amazed at how many people have donated.

January Quick Stats:

Miles run: 350 miles

Shortest run: 2.3 miles

Longest run: 20 miles (my longest since 2019!)

Range of paces: 6:28-14:30-untimed

Workouts: 6

Swimming: 4 times

As always, you can follow me on Strava for workout updates.

Thoughts:

January was a good month of training for me. As I’ve talked about at least one thousand times the flu hit me hard. For months after, I struggled with breathing normally. I thought maybe I actually have/had long COVID but nothing, including 6 negative COVID tests, ever pointed me in that direction. In January, I slowly felt better. I still have days where running feels hard, but in general, I have felt better.

In December, I ran a 14-mile run. It honestly didn’t feel “too bad,” and in fact, I enjoyed it. I originally started increasing my long runs because my endurance was not great. When your longest run of the week was 10 miles, so it’s no wonder half-marathons didn’t feel easy. I knew I should have increased them a long time ago, but with everything I had going on, I just wasn’t interested or ready. So anyway, when long runs started to consistently feel good and even fun, signed up for the LA Marathon.

I only did one road race (and one swim meet) last month. Rose Bowl went really well and I have no complaints. Truthfully, I’ve wanted to consistently run the last few months instead of “always getting ready for a race”. Work is sometimes exhausting so I also just enjoy staying home on weekends more than I thought I would. This is a big shift for me, but at this time it’s the right choice.

The LA Marathon isn’t flat and has a lot of rolling hills, as most California races do. It can also be hot. So the weather might be perfect, but it also might be terrible. I also haven’t run a marathon in 4 years and truly it feels like I’m once again starting as a beginner. My “A” goal would be run under 3:30 but I’ll be happy to finish.

As far as workouts go, I’ve had some good workouts recently, too. While technically it was the first day of February, I ran 5X1 miles hard with 1 mile moderate. I was unsure if I could “do that” because the workout was long. My workouts have slowly gotten faster, and I’m starting to feel fitter.

Swimming:l also did a swim meet in January too. My friend and I signed up on a whim with no training. I swam 4x since Thanksgiving and decided it would be a great time to swim the mile. Somehow I finished at 23:38, which I can complain about. It was fun.

So it was a good month of training. February will be about the same. Doing a few more long runs and getting comfortable with 20 miles. Then mostly tapering in February.