Marathon Training

Time to put up, or shut up.

I'm training for a BQ, a Boston Qualification.

There. I said it.

As a 35 year old male, that means I need to run a marathon in 3 hours 10 minutes (or better).

Which makes my GMP, or Goal Marathon Pace, 7:15/mile.

My coach, a 40+ time marathoner, 3x Olympic Trials Qualifier, extremely gifted runner (and certified coach), has been giving me specific workouts to get me there.

The biggest thing I'm needing to concentrate on is consistency, getting a feel for the 7:15 pace.

The race I'm targeting is the 36th Annual Lincoln National Guard Marathon, which is May 5, 2013.

Specific workouts I've done, thus far, include:

• GMP 2x2
• warm up, then 2 miles at GMP, jog 1 mile, 2 miles at GMP, cool down
• GMP 2x3
• warm up, 2 @ GMP, jog 1, 2 @ GMP, jog 1, 2 @ GMP, cool down
• GMP 10k
• warm up, 6.2 @ GMP, cool down
• I did this one on my own, Coach was happy about the result, but "yelled" that it was too early to do this type of workout
• 3-2-1 Repeats
• warm up, (3 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy, 2 hard / easy, 1 hard / easy) repeat x 4, cool down
• GMP 3x2
• 2 up, 3 @ GMP, jog 1, 3 @ GMP, down
• did this on my treadmill, which is quite a bit tougher than I thought