There is nothing like waiting till the last minute to finish something very important. For example, my training plan for the NYC Marathon, which you know, should be starting right around today. I finished it about one minute ago. I would like to say it was because even though I am completely unorganized I had a perfect plan in my head that I just had to put it into a wonderfully color-coded schedule that Melissa created for the NJ Marathon back in the winter. But let’s be serious, I was having a panic attack every day that the plan I wanted to go with was WAY too hard for me. I decided to suck it up, make the plan and go for it. If the paces are too fast, I will adjust as I go. I am in NO WAY a running professional, an experienced runner or even a good runner. I have run 2 marathons, one was an absolute disaster so I could only go up from there!

I am following the FIRST (Run Less, Run Faster) training plan, which is the same plan I used for the NJ Marathon in May (I figure if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it). I love that the plan has you run 3 times a week and adds in cross training. However, I am going to add in a few things that I should have added the last time:

• Much more strength training. I want to do at least 3 days a week. I am going to be incorporating Rachel Cosgrove’s “Female Body Breakthrough” heavy weightlifting into my training as well as the Nike Training Club app. I LOVE the 15 minute workouts for each area of your bod. They are quick but they are tough as shit.
• I am going to go Pilates at least once a week.
• I am going to be more creative with my cross training (maybe hop in a pool, and test out my hot green one piece).
• Running in the morning! I love running in the morning!
• I will foam roll about 683 times more than I used to
• I am going to incorporate protein more into my training and recovery (hello Vega, I love you).

These are all things that I believe will make my body much stronger (which will in turn help me win the NYC Marathon, obviously).

The main thing I am going to be about this plan is flexible (no, I can’t do a split anymore, didn’t you read my hip surgery post?!!). I want to be able to change the days I run and lift or bike or spin or zumba (if I have the balls) because life comes up and I don’t want to be married to this plan to the point where I am miserable.

SO Here is what I came up with (actually, this is what the guys from the book came up with) – RACES are in Blue!

SIDE NOTE 1: This is only the running. I will list the other workouts (cross training/ strength) in the Weekly Workout posts.

SIDE NOTE 2: This is not a high mileage plan. I max out around 40 miles/wk and only because I am running a Ragnar that weekend!

I am very excited to start this round of training. I have already met SO many AMAZING people through this blog and it is perfect because many of them are running fall marathons and I plan on doing 100% of my training with them. Aren’t you guys super excited about that?? I thought so!

Feel free to comment, make suggestions about runs or workouts, tell me I will never run a 7:02 mile repeat, because, well, I probably can’t.