Today is Monday, December 31. In other words, it is Day 1 of my marathon training.

I tried to train for a marathon last year and it didn’t work out. I half-followed an online plan, didn’t complement it properly with enough yoga and stretching and just wore myself out with running. So I scaled back to a half-marathon and had an okay race. But the failure allowed me to focus and figure out where I went wrong.

This time, I plan to do it right.

I hired a running coach. (Hi, Andie!) My coach gave me a plan and we will have weekly email check-ins to see how it’s going and what I am doing. It’s going to be great! Or, at least, organized. I got new running stuff for Christmas. I got a foam roller, which I plan to use every day. (So far, so good on this front. But oh my god, does it ever hurt.)

This last week of working out was good: I ran on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, did yoga on Thursday and Friday and squashed and Bodypumped it on Saturday. There were only three of us in the Bodypump class, so when the teacher was yelling, you knew she yelling at you. Oh, aggressive motivation. It works so well. But it felt good to get that many workouts in, and gave me hope that I can fit in all my marathon training around life things.

For my first week of training, this is what I have planned/my coach is telling me to do:

Monday: rest (hahaha, this feels like cheating!)

Tuesday: 8k at a moderate tempo, which I can do as 10&1 if I can’t sustain that pace (On New Year’s Day! This will be painful. I dislike a lot of holidays, but NYE is not one of them. A holiday where the only expecation is to drink a lot? Now, that’s my kind of holiday.)

Wednesday: Speedwork: 10 minute warm-up, 4X2 minutes, with 90 second break in between (speedwork is the ENEMY, but I’m glad this is a time thing, so I can do it on the street)

Thursday: REST (This is on my plan in CAPITALS, so I know it’s serious.)

Friday: 30 minute hilly route, with 3-4 rolling hills (Thank goodness I live near Riverdale, where hills abound. I also plan to go to yoga this day, which isn’t on my coach’s plan, but is in the Erin Balser life plan.)

Saturday: Easy 30 minutes (This is optional, but I may pull a run-to-yoga OR join the Lulu Lemon running club and slow everyone down. I have a grand plan to alternating Saturdays with squash/bodypump and run/yoga. I recognize how ambitious this is.)

Sunday: 13k LSD, to do as 10&1s (HAHAHA, I might possibly die. I haven’t run over 10k in MONTHS.)

How will I do? I’ll let you know next Monday…