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The apostle Paul, through all his trauma, trials, and tribulation, refused to give up. Living a life of grit isn't about success. In its simplest and rawest form, resilience is the ability to show up, endure pain, press on, and keep going-even if you're not winning. Success is not the same as resilience. When you're successfully resilient, your problems may still exist—but you're forging ahead in the middle of the mess.
Good Morning, time is flying! The end of this week is the start of May already. And with that being said, the Chicago marathon is 5 months out. So today I wanted to give you an update on how my training has gone so far. I will be focusing on three main topics!
Recovery
Overtraining
May training program
Recovery
Recovery has been the focus for this marathon. Marathon training takes a serious toll on the body, and as I finish the last weeks of physical therapy school, I’ve realized how important recovery is for performance. The first step has been improving my sleep — I increased my time in bed from 7 to 8 hours and added a night routine (covered in a previous newsletter).
I’m also staying consistent with stretching and rolling out. In my last marathon, I barely did either and only used a foam roller or massage gun when I was already sore. Now, I make sure to stretch and roll before every workout. I’m also doing specific exercises for my ankle, since that gave me trouble in my last race.
Overtraining
Last week, I talked about Overtraining Syndrome — and a lot of that came from personal experience. I took the past few weeks off running and only lifted in the gym, keeping leg days light. This week, I’m easing back into running, starting slow to avoid the same problems.
I also realized that trying to jump from a 3:33 to sub-2:50 isn’t enjoyable. Overtraining caused me to not enjoy running as much, and the reason I run is because I enjoy it. So I’m adjusting my goal to sub-3:15 and will aim to qualify for Boston in a future race by slowly decreasing my goal time each marathon.
May Training Program
Heading into May, my training split will be 3 run days, 2 lift days, and 2 rest days.
Runs: one 5-mile easy, one 7-mile easy, and one speed workout.
Lifts: full-body sessions, keeping lower body weights light.
This is the plan, but I’ll adjust based on how my body feels. One big lesson I’ve learned is that marathon training is different from training for football — you can’t just push through pain.
A leader who is willing to sacrifice will inspire those he leads to sacrifice. Integrity gives power to our words, strength to our plans, and resources to our actions.