I’m almost done with my 2014 Highlights post but in the meantime I wanted to share with you a little about my plan of attack for marathon training and knee rehabbing since I’ll be kicking into gear in just 4 days.

The New Jersey Marathon is exactly 16 weeks from today! EXCITED is an understatement!!!!

Giddy after completing and PR’ing in the 2014 NJ Marathon

I’ll be starting my training cycle this Thursday as I really wanted to give my knee a solid 2 weeks rest. (Thursday will actually be the 17th day of rest. Isn’t it funny how we know exactly how many days we haven’t run.)

First, a little update on the knee:

In these last couple of weeks my knee has felt close to 100 percent and I’ll admit I got a little too laxed with all the icing, stretching and strengthening I said I was going to do so I’m lucky that the rest helped as much as it did. But, I’ve noticed that climbing up and down stairs or hills even while just walking irritates the knee just enough for me to know that it needs more than rest. And on Saturday night Mr. SOTSS and I went bowling. I noticed that irritated the knee a bit too. Bummer. Especially because I beat him in both games and was looking to win one more game before heading home but I opted to shut it down and let the knee retire for the night.

He probably let me win both games. He’s that kinda guy. =)

I’ve been researching some good instructional videos for how to strengthen/rehab the knee so I can get a bit more structured about this. I found this little video and while the audio could be better it’s got a great little collection of exercises. It’s now bookmarked and I’m going to do this every.single.day!

OK, now onto my marathon training plan. I’m calling it the Back-to-Basics plan because I don’t plan on any bells or whistles. Nothing complicated.

Back to Basics Marathon Training Plan

I’m lucky in that NJ is a very flat course. So there will be no hill training. I’m also choosing to let go of any time goals. So there will be no speed work. Basically I just want to get 3 solid runs in per week:

1. One easy run
2. One tempo run
3. One long run

And I’ll add to that a day or two of cross training, some strengthening, stretching and some core work as well on most days. I’m not even focused on the exact amount of miles I cover for my mid-week runs. I just want to ensure I can hit those long runs. And I’ll add in some step back weeks every few weeks recover. This is mainly to ensure my knee, ankle, hamstring, calf….all the weak spots from 2014….have a better chance at healing and not causing me any grief. But also, my life has become just a little bit fuller over the last year and I want to spend time doing much more than training for a marathon. Low key just makes sense for me right now.

I can’t tell you how liberating it feels to take away so many of the rules for this training cycle.

So now that I’ve bored you guys just as much as the doodle….

YAWN! Oh and I’m 100 percent recovered and my momma is SOOOO happy!

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in 18 days…..get ready for work! Holiday vacation is officially over.

Have a great week!

Question: Are you training for anything this Spring? Anything exciting happening this week?

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