How to Find Time to Train for a Marathon?
This is another post for the Road to the TCS New City Marathon, which is around the corner, and being a social media ambassador keeps me busy this time and that’s what we are going to talk in this post: How to find the time to train for a marathon?
When you decide to sign up for a marathon, is like signing a contract, specially when are signing up for a big event, such as #TCSNYCMarathon.
Why?
Well, running a marathon, is not like running a 5k or 10k, not even a 21k It is much more and you body needs to adapt to the pounding, which is 3 times the weight of the body as it say a study:
“A report done by the Z-Tech shoe company states that the maximum force can equal up to three-and-a-half times body weight. Therefore, a person weighing 670 newtons (150 pounds) would experience a force of up to 2300 newtons (525 pounds).”
As a result is important to find the time to do quality training in order to be well prepared for the big day.
How to that with our busy life?
The key to find the time is PLANNING the race. In my personal experience that is the key to have a good performance during the race and it all start by choosing which race, when and where I will be running. I even compared this kind of planning with Project Management
A marathon, in fact is a project, it has a START and it has an END, and many workouts in between. Also, if you attending an event out-of-state or abroad as we can see in the #TCSNYCMarathon, which has attract many foreigners through the years, you need a budget and some constraints, like can be an injury, a personal event, or something else, and probably you will have some time down and you nay need to move some activities and be more efficient, specially when having a busy life, family, friends and so on.
In my case, PLANNING, then is key.
The first I do always, is to look at the calendar and see the races that will be taking place in at least 6 months. Is crucial at least for me to have at least 6 months period to train, before that I will see it a bit risky and I may under perform and I will pushing things quite a bit,
Next, I will plan a BUDGET, even before signing up and see how things are, if I have extras expenses to cover first, work, family, etc,
How to enter to a race? If it a major marathon? If there is a lottery? Traveling with an agency? Traveling alone or with family?
Then in this case for the #TCSNYCMarathon a period of 8 months was the time frame to decide, then I see if I can enter directly because of my time or not. In this case I was able to enter by time that was with Boston 2015 with a 3hr 07min. Then I make sure I enter, since you actually get notice several weeks after that.
If not, I would go on a Official Agency to attend the event, which can be find locally, depends where you are and they will arrange everything for and ensuring the entry, for this, you must a have a budget and be sure you will be able.
Once in, then the actions starts,
So how is it to plan the daily workouts?
First set REALISTIC goals and something you can do and you can engage.
Second, Plan ahead the training phases and be prepare to have a calendar in which you can rely in order to plan the daily workout, at least for me, is the only thing that have help me to plan my day.
Last, follow the calendar and make time during the day according to the training, and stick to your plan, in this part you need to focus and look for the rewards.
Here is the most difficult part, since some of the workouts are long and energy consuming, so in this case is going to be important that your family supports you and be aware of what are you doing, since also they will ask for quality time.
Here, I just modify my calendar when needed, and of course the time of training has changed over the years and hings on what I am doing at that time.
When in college, for the Cross Country season, we started to train, since the summer, so, finding time to train, and even I was in holidays somewhere I always made the time to train and commit to season ahead of me.
During classes, we were having to sessions, one in the morning and the other one in the afternoon / evening. The first session, took place at 6:15, but I needed to be prepare since before, so planning and having ready the night before helped me. And be very efficient with the time during the day, since we were having the second session at 3:15pm, so I needed to be very organized to be able to handle sometimes work, classes, papers, exams, homework and so on, but since then I become organized in that matter and having several races during the semester make things little bit more complicated, but at the end you learn how to handle it.
Now, in real life, is the same, usually I train in the evening, if I do double session, the short one is in the morning, and the head to work, is important to have breakfast, either I have it at home or at the office and the head to the session in the evening, even if it is very late I will run, the latest I have done that is maybe midnight, but because I am a person that really engages with things, so I really stick to what I planned during the day
Some days is a sacrifice, even hanging out with friends, but is not that often, is important to have social life, but also taking care, so maybe not drinking, or cutting in sweets, this kind of things, of getting to bed early because you have a long run.
All these details will shape the quality of your life and the quality of your training.
Some days, is better to start very earl and get done, and specially for the ones doing triathlons and Ironman, everything is around the clock and must be very precise.
At the end of the day, your level of commitment will make you wonders with time and you will find a balance, because it is also important and probably the key to have a successful season. This, of course with the aid of training calendar in order to track all what we have done and avoid those constraints that can be present in any training cycle.
In summary
PLAN
Look at your BUDGET
CREATE a calendar with the weekly mileage
Have and AGENDA or LOG, but bod running and daily task you have to do
Stick to your plan
Engage/Commit to your plan
Be efficient
Balance life with Running
Good luck all those training for the TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHON