My First Marathon: The 20 Miler I Skipped and the Goal I’m Chasing

After the half marathon, I set my sights on a full marathon in October, and I wanted to hit that 430 mark.

I knew that was going to take a lot of work, so I made a deliberate plan and went after whatever kind of felt like my weakest area.

At first, that seemed like cardiovascular fitness.

I didn't feel like I had enough of an aerobic base, and I was starting to hear a lot of people talk about Zone 2 training, and so that's where I went.

During that, my Zone 2 pace went from 14.14 per mile down to about 11.30 per mile.

And I was holding time on feet pretty steady throughout that whole time, so my mileage naturally went up to about 30 miles a week, and most of that was Zone 2.

But then the week link seemed to shift.

My cardio system seemed like it was doing pretty good, but structurally, I started feeling some pain in my Achilles, which I self-diagnosed as Achilles tendinopathy.

And my left knee, which is a historic weak point for me from an old college injury about 15 years ago, started really bothering me.

So I shifted to the new weak link, my foundation.

I did more strength work, specifically isometric calf raises and a lot of weighted step-ups to help the Achilles and the knee strength and stability.

One thing that makes all of this training and this goal harder is my work schedule.

I have to travel a lot.

I'm in hotel rooms.

I have to run in treadmills sometimes, and there's nowhere good to run outside.

And I spent a lot of time sitting in a truck with my right leg locked on the gas pedal, which just wreaks havoc on that right leg.

And the hours are super unpredictable.

Some days I'm working nine to 10 hours a day.

Some days it's more like 15 or 16.

And I usually don't really know which one I'm getting.

when I wake up.

So it makes it tough to be consistent and plan my training around work.

The other thing that's shifted my plan away from marathon-specific work a little bit was the Jigger Johnson, which is a 20-mile trail race that I did with a friend.

20 miles in the mountains with about 6,000 feet of elevation gain.

So I had to change up some of my training to prepare for it, and I did get real benefit from that race, but it did cost me a little bit of marathon-specific training.