run | Sam from Amsterdam

The first week of marathon training is behind me. 54 miles, the first week. That’s a little different from how I’ve previously prepared. I used to only run about 6-8 miles for the first “long run” of marathon training. I mostly kept my weekly mileage around 25 miles… yes, less than the total distance of the marathon ha! And still expected to easily be able to break 4. I was disappointed each time when I finally crawled over the finish line at around 4:30. I ran around 40-50 miles per week on my last marathon training block. Doing this I finally broke the 4 hour barrier.

I’ve consistently been running about 40-50 miles per week since my last marathon in January. This training block if everything goes well I will go up to about 70 miles in one week. How I’m going to survive this, I’m not sure yet haha!

The first long run was already 15 miles. I remember I used to be nervous the entire week when I had a long run of 15 miles. I would normally run this around 8:30 pace for 10 miles and then pretty much walk run the last 5 in misery. I would be down the rest of the day, my muscles hurting and super tired.

Since I’ve learned to drastically slow down my long runs, I was easily able to complete 15 miles this Saturday. I was able to have a Saturday like I didn’t even run, nothing hurt and I wasn’t tired.

I can’t believe I never realized the importance of building a base in running. After years of training the wrong way, I’m glad I’m finally on the right track!

This last Saturday I ran my fastest 10K EVER! For years I’ve thought that I just wasn’t good at running and don’t have talent to truly be good. I figured out in the last couple of months that I was totally wrong all these years. I’ve just been doing it all wrong!!

For this 10k, I didn’t even train.. I mean I’ve been running 45-50 mile weeks, but no specific 10k training. I decided to do it to have guideline for training paces since my marathon training starts this week. When I got to the starting line Saturday I planned on starting out at 7:45 pace and just take it a little faster each mile. Instead I ran the first mile at 7:30 and decided to stick around that pace. I ended up running the whole thing even (which I never normally do 😅) and ran a 46:09!!

In 2020 I decided to qualify for Boston and I’m slowly getting closer and closer. I ran this same 10k in 2019 and ran a 50:19. That’s over 4 minutes faster!

In 2020 I read every blog I could and listened to so many podcast to figure out how to get faster. Here’s what I’ve done so far (I’m not done, but for the people who are where I was)

⁃ upped my mileage from 15-25 miles per week to 50 per week

⁃ Ran 80 percent of my runs 2-3 mins slower than 5k pace!!! Very important!!

⁃ The last month I’ve tried to get more sleep (this needs work 😜)

⁃ Started doing strength training 3/4 times per week during lunch

⁃ I do 1-2 workout runs per week.

⁃ Swap out shoes during the week

I’m listening a lot to the Run4prs podcasts, they have such great tips on their Instagram pace!! Just seeing the progress of the athletes they coach have made me feel like it’s possible for me to qualify for Boston.

The last time I ran anything even close to this 10k was back in 2008, a 46:12. I never got close after that cause I started running all my mileage as fast as I could in college. I also worked full time and went to school so never ever got enough sleep. I got sick every month and only got slower race times. Believe me, if I can get a PR at 31 after already been running since I was 17, you can do this too!!! You don’t need talent, just a lot of hard work.

There’s never a good time for running. There’s never a time where I’m like, “oh I guess I could go run now.” My schedule is always packed, even with me not having kids(which I often hear as an excuse), My life is very full. I’ve been working 45-50 hours a week. This means I get up at 3-4 in the morning and run in the dark, or run after work, also partly in the dark. Your schedule will never just free up for you to “have” time to run, you have to “make” time to run. It all just depends on how bad you want to reach your goals.