What the Calendar Doesn't Know...

I think I knew what kind of calendar a person should follow to train for a marathon long before I ever had a desire to run one. Long runs on weekends, a fast run during the week, and a couple of “easy” runs and cross training to round it out. I knew that you never run more than 20 miles if you are training for your first marathon and that you taper the weeks before. What I did not know is that “The Marathon Calendar” does not know everything about the life of a person training!

I was all set to follow my training plan to the letter. I figured out the whole five months and have already made plans for runs when I am traveling and working late and everything else. Even with all of my careful planning I knew that things would eventually go awry and at some point I’d have to adapt the plan. In the first month I think I have followed the exact plan maybe, maybe 50 percent of the time! What could cause me to shift the calendar so soon into training? When I am fresh and excited and never needing to run more than 7 miles?

Let’s start with a severe case of food poisoning right before my first “long run” (5 miles.) I went to bed early, had my clothes laid out and had successfully followed the calendar for almost one whole week! I was up plenty early for that run, but I spent the whole night crawling back and forth from my bedroom to the bathroom, throwing up, shivering, and passing out on the floor. Running was not an option. I couldn’t even walk for 24 hours. It took a week for me to feel well enough to try a 30-minute run and to think about eating normally again. So adaptation number one. Try to recover before running and hope it doesn’t happen marathon week!

It also doesn’t take into account when you go on a trip and bring every single item of running clothing you own—except your running shoes! (An actual true story) It doesn’t know about an icy day, or a very cold day or just a very busy day. Lest you think The Marathon Calendar only doesn’t know about reasons not to run, let me tell you that The Marathon Calendar also doesn’t know when you made a wrong turn on a run and wound up going 8.5 miles instead of the scheduled 7 (these are all taken directly from my current training, nothing here is made up!)

What I am learning, is that despite my careful plan and the hours spent thinking about how and where and when I will get in these runs, things happen. Wrong turns and sicknesses are just part of living life for five months. The true art in any long term plan, any goal that will take more than a week or two to accomplish, is to know how to adapt the plan. To value each step as a part of the bigger picture, but not make each step the whole picture. To move forward, stumble backward, take a detour, then brush yourself off and keep going. To know “the Marathon Calendar” and your personal best aren’t always the same thing. To believe in and expect nothing less than your personal best, and in then end, to trust that is enough.