My first post
Welcome to my blog. I am going to use this platform to write out my training plan, and my road to my first marathon.
I’ve signed up for my first marathon. I will participate in the marathon of Amsterdam on the 20th of October this year. In preparation for this race, I’ve come to realize many aspects come into play for such a distance. Aspects such as nutrition, the right shoes, training plan, and even the right running form.
The longest distance I’ve ever run, currently, is 16.3km (10 miles) in the Dam-tot-Dam loop. Furthermore, I did participate in a couple of 10km races. My current PB’s are as follows:
- 10KM → 47.02
- 10 Miles → 1.30.00
I’ve been running since the coronavirus hit. As everyone knows, most of us were forced to stay inside most of the time. I felt that this would be destructive to my mental health. To get fresh air and be outside for a little bit I decided to run 3 times a week. To paint you a picture I weighed 99kg (at my peak I was 112kg) and my height was 179cm. You could say I was overweight.
Moreover, I didn’t feel like running was my sport, nevertheless, I decided to go for a run. Soon I was addicted to it. After an initial period, I wanted to keep on increasing the distances. This went on until I reached the 10-12km mark. After regular life resumed and while changing jobs I found it harder to make time to go for long runs. I always went at least twice a week, but the long runs weren’t regular anymore.
Despite the minimal training, I set myself a goal of participating in the Dam-tot-Dam loop, the biggest running event in the Netherlands. During this, I hit the well-known wall. I finished the race, don’t ask me how, but I was upset with my performance. After a couple of days the satisfaction of finishing had set in, and a new goal popped into my head. I started researching what marathon I could partake in. The marathon of Rotterdam is already in April, so that was not an option. I let my eye fall on Amsterdam as I will have ample time to train properly.
Currently, I’m increasing the weekly kilometers (I’m doing around 30-35km per week) plus studying interval exercises. Recently, I’ve discovered the Norwegian method whereby you warm up (duh) and then go into 4 minutes hard, and 3 minutes rest. During the 4 minutes, your heart rate should be in zone 4 (85%-95% of your max heart rate), and during the 3 minutes, your HR should be in zone 2 (60%-70% of your max HR). I am fairly new to this method and interval training in general, so I am curious about what it does to my performance. Some runners such as the Ingebrigtsen brothers have had much success with this method. I have another 10km race in May so it will be interesting to see if I can come close to my personal best.
That brings us to the reason for this blog. I want to keep myself accountable by writing about my training. What’s more, I want to use this platform as a manner to organize my thoughts. As I’ve mentioned before there are a lot of considerations when preparing for your first marathon, so I want to write about these and research the best ways for me. I will try to write about my progress and the interesting topics related to running weekly.
I hope this entices you to follow me on my journey to my first marathon.