Road to BQ weeknote 01 Regress
"It's not a sign of weakness if you have to regress, it's a sign of knowing yourself and listening to yourself." - Kirra Michel, Peloton Instructor
mileage: 5 miles
cross training: pilates, swimming, CrossFit, surfing, walking
shoes: good old Nike Pegasus 40, tried out Altra paradigm, squished toes too much
song on repeat: Part Six by Paul Kalkbrenner
Aug 5 officially kicks off 18 weeks until the California International Marathon (CIM), 26.2 miles I'll be enjoying and questioning life on. There are a lot of training plans out there - 18 weeks, 16 weeks, 12 weeks. They say if you're already in marathon shape - whatever that means - you can do 12 weeks. I like to get an early start, because I'm terrible at directions and I'm sure I'll hit some detours along the way, some self-imposed, some no.
In most plans, the first 4-6 weeks are dedicated to base building, you get your mileage up enough so your body can handle the tougher workouts you're going to put it through. You're building a strong foundation so when you add an additional brick, your body won't crumble.
Well, my body was not ready for that additional brick when I started doing more track and work outs and my body crumbled. I got injured in the form of shin splints. My foundation was not stable. Luckily I figured it out before the foundation crumbled more (i.e. it got to stress fractures). Lesson learned that I will take it slow and steady in these first weeks.
This first week was mentally preparing myself for marathon training, and trying to keep my fitness by doing everything except running, which surprisingly was harder than I thought. Who knew I loved running so much. The silver lining was the forced break from running provided space to try other activities - e.g. overcoming my fear of open water swimming and learn surfing.
This was not my first or second time trying to learn surfing, but it was the first time I enjoyed it. Water is healing, and I feel like finally getting beyond the break point was a huge confidence boost. Just sitting on the board watching the water was meditative. My friend & teacher taught me "I just lean into the incoming wave like I'm jumping on top of pillows". so I leaned in my fear a little more.
Although I regressed a bit in my running training by taking a few weeks off, I felt I made progress in mentally preparing myself for something hard. If I can overcome the crashing waves, the deep unknown, I'm ready for that BQ.