So, the marathon is behind me. A New Year is on the horizon, and I’m looking for a new challenge – you know me, can’t sit around on old laurels.

I decided that I need to do a new Marathon, to try and meet my original goals, now that I know what it’s REALLY like! I want something fun, though, and inspiring. So, here’s what I’ve picked:

WALT DISNEY WORLD® Marathon Weekend

Now, the info at that link is for the upcoming one this January – obviously WAY too soon. I’m going to do it a year from now. Yep, I’ve learned my lesson! Don’t train too quickly for a Marathon!

So, here’s my plan for SLOOOOOW but steady training:

From November 1 – December 31: I’m going to just get back to minimum basics in nutrition, active lifestyle, and creative prayer (which is a tool that got me through much of my Marathon!)

From January 1 – March 16: Improving on all of the above, I will begin more serious training culminating in the St. Patricks Day Run 2009, in Edmonton.  (note: Just so you get an idea of how slowly I’m training for this and the following events, note that most people can walk out their front door and do a 5k without training and without difficulty.  I am taking just under 3 months to train for it.  This means that this whole program – start to finish – is within anyone’s grasp.)

From March 23 – June 7: Still improving on basics, I will then train for a 10k walk on June 7. Don’t have a final choice yet (not all races are listed at this point) though there’s an interesting on on June 7 called the LSLBO Bird 5 K or 10K Fun Trail in Slave Lake, Alberta.

From June 8 – September 7: I will now increase my training to prepare for a half marathon. Not sure where, as I can’t find any listings yet for September.

From Sept 14 – January 4: I’ll train for the WALT DISNEY WORLD® Marathon, and turn it into a cool family vacation afterwards, as a celebration.

The timing seems perfect, it keeps me in training all year with easier races to add smaller goals. It also means that I’m not outside for too long during the cold Alberta winters! I’ve done a LOT of research, and have put together a very slow moving plan that should get me to the final finish line without injury or overtraining. I hope. Not only have I prepared the plan, but I’m making the first part of it (November 1 – December 31 above) available to anyone who wants it. The other levels will follow as I complete them. More details will be available on Friday.

So, now the question is, who wants to train with me? (and yes, you can do it in your own hometown, too – just find the appropriate races, and join in!)

With hopeful anticipation,

Darlene

Yesterday at 2:33 I completed the BMO Okanagan Marathon 2008. It took 7 hours, 33 minutes and 59 seconds. I was a ways off my goal time of 6 hours, and was second to last finishing, but I did it!

What surprised me

• I was surprised at how difficult it really was. My longest training walk was 34k, and I did that one with no difficulty – in fact, I felt I could have gone much longer. This one started getting really hard around 20k, which for me is not a difficult distance. This was probably because my training has been so badly hindered these last few weeks with the sciatica and the exhaustion.
• I was surprised at how often I had to stop and go to the bathroom! I don’t have that many options at home when I train, so I can’t go very often. On the walk I needed a bathroom about every 3 miles for the first 15 k or so. Ridiculous. Good thing I didn’t have anything to drink that morning!
• I was also surprised at how few walkers I saw. There were about 50 of us at the starting line, and about 30 were only completing the half marathon, but there should have been more walkers along the route. I’m thinking they were doing a “walk-run” and so started with me, but then very soon they disappeared.
• I was really surprised and discouraged to see how much of the route I needed to walk entirely alone. That was very hard. I sure appreciated the volunteers and police officers on that part of the walk, I can assure you. I was terrified that they’d dismantle the route before I finished, and that I’d get lost!
• I was also surprised at how much pain I was in all last night, and even some this morning. I usually was stiff for a couple of hours after a long walk, but never like this. Oh my goodness! I have to use my hands to place my legs where they need to go!

What encouraged me

• I loved the volunteers. They were fantastic. A couple of walkers near the end were also a great support, especially after I had walked almost half the distance totally alone with no other walker/runner in site. It was so lovely to see someone else – and so friendly! – still walking. I was able to make up for their friendliness by retrieving a little stuffed bear that one of them used as a “lucky charm” and get it back to her after the race. She was so pleased because that bear had been through a lot with her, and she cried when she realized she’d lost it.
• I was pleased to see that I had brought exactly what I needed. It was really cold at the start (5 degrees C) but I chose to not wear a sweatshirt, jacket, or gloves as I didn’t want to have to carry them. After about 1.5 hours it warmed up, and I was quite comfortable. I also had enough trail mix and Energy Drink to get me through.
• Having Tom, Joanne, Jaimey and Gord walk the last 2k with me was incredible. It made me cry. I was in such pain, and so exhausted I really doubted I could make those last two kilometers, but they made sure I did. I was surprised at how desperately I needed them to be there! Their support this weekend was beyond words. More about them on Wednesday!
• I actually completed it! There were some dicey moments, but for most of it I didn’t have much option except to keep going – which was good – but those last couple of kilometers when the tents were in site, but I had to take the long way around were murder!

What I learned for next time

• Well, it was pretty obvious that I need to train differently. My next step is to get a good heart rate monitor, and then get out the Maffetone book and set up my training using that. I think I’ll be MUCH less tired on the big day if I follow his guidelines.
• Get the massage. I signed up for their 20 minute post-race massage on a whim. I’m not sure I could have walked to the car without it. Pain never felt so good! Thanks, Dana!
• Hydrate better the days before, and do more research on nutrition. I think I might have done better had I been better hydrated before I started, and had I done the maximum with nutrition during the training. So much to learn!

And there you have it! I’ve done the marathon. In spite of it all, I can hardly wait to train for the next one – but I won’t be doing ANY training, this week! I’ll be glad if I can walk unassisted to the bathroom!

Darlene

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Ok, I’m going to start shifting things on this blog. I’m getting some different ideas about how I want to move forward with this, and so Fridays are no longer going to be a training program – I’ll show you how to get a training program for yourself in a couple of weeks – but I thought I might just share some of the cool things I’m using and how I’m using them as I train.

Well, the time is fast approaching. We are heading to Kelowna today in preparation for the Marathon on Sunday. My girlfriend and her family are meeting us there on Saturday; she’s walking the half Marathon, and her daughter is running the Marathon. I’m impressed!

I’m madly pulling stuff together. More specifically, I’m preparing my iPod – my most important piece of equipment. It’s going to be very important that I pace myself properly through this, and my recent weeks of fatigue are making it a little difficult to read my own level of preparedness, so I’m putting together a playlist that will keep me a little slower than I might otherwise like to go, but still allowing me to move ahead quickly if that’s how I feel. I thought I’d share with you how I set it up.

I’m hoping to complete the Marathon in 6 hours, so I have arranged my playlist by the hour, so that I know where I am.

• Hour 1: I’m starting off with my Rosary prayers, which take just under 5k to complete, and I’ll do that accompanied by the album “Patrick“, which is a beautiful, celtic instrumental album that I find very relaxing and soothing. It ends about the same time as my Rosary, so it works out well.

  That will be followed by three worship songs: Pour My Love On You (by Philips, Craig, and Dean), Breathe by Daywind Studio Musicians, and then Sanctuary by Jenn Weber. That takes care of the first hour, and will help me calm my nerves, stick to a slow warm-up, and pace myself properly for the race.



• Hour 2: Now I’ll speed up and start proper power walking form. These next 2 hours will be done using the PodRunner Podcasts. This first hour will be “Cool Running” at 140 beats per minute.
• Hour 3: Continuing to speed up using the PodRunner Podcasts, I’ll move up to 143 bpm with “Autopilot“. Somewhere in this hour, I should pass the half-way mark, and I’ll begin with my energy drinks, and possibly some trail mix and apple slices if I feel the need for more fuel.
• Hour 4: I thought by now I might need to change things up a bit, so I’m putting in a session of challenging-but-not-too-challenging interval training using the level 4 program of ZTrainer. This will be followed again by Pour My Love On You (yeah, I know, I’ve already listened to it, but that song truly inspires me, and opens up my soul!) followed by level 5 of ZTrainer, followed again by Breathe (yeah, same as above!). That takes care of hour four, and by now I should have completed somewhere around 30k.
• Hour 5: Now back to some nice, steady walking at 152 bpm using the PodRunner Podcasts, specifically the song mix entitled “Powertrip“
• Hour 6: My final hour will be at 155 bpm using PodRunner’s song mix called “World Cruise“.

Now this Playlist keeps me well within a doable speed range. I’ve trained comfortably at a rate quite a bit higher than this, but I wanted to keep it slow and low so that I am able to complete the race without killing myself. But, just in case I feel great, and want to go faster, I’ve also included the following mixes at the end of this playlist so I can skip ahead:

• PodRunner’s “Relayered” at 158 bpm
• PodRunner’s “Terra Nova” at 160 bpm

And finally, because the song so inspires me, once again I have Pour My Love On You, which is what I want to be listening to as I cross the finish line.

I can hardly wait.

Watch for pictures here on Monday!

Darlene

I am so excited about this project! You see, on October 12, 2008 I’m going to walk my very first Marathon in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Who’da thunk it? As I’ve been training for this event I have been struck by how God is speaking to me about my walk with Him and how it compares to Marathon training. As a blogging junkie I thought (hoped?) it might be fun to share some of those insights with others, and inspire some conversation both about walking/fitness/achieving audacious goals, and about what it really means to walk with God. I’d love to have your input and insight along my journey, and I hope we can encourage each other.

You need to know that I am NOT an athlete. I hate sports – except for the occasional World Cup Soccer Championship game on TV – and was always the one no one wanted on their team in school. In fact, I clearly remember a fist fight breaking out between two captains who were adamantly refusing to have me on their team. Sigh. I don’t like sore muscles, heavy breathing or sweat, and for the past five years I’ve been perfecting the art of being a “computer potato” (as opposed to a couch potato).

In September of 2007 my husband started inspiring me to go to the gym 3x a week, and I was sporadically faithful with that, but it wasn’t great. I didn’t really enjoy it. I have been getting more and more frustrated by the extra poundage two large babies and an undisciplined lifestyle have brought me, and I was determined to get it off. I set up a challenge with a friend to get the weight off, and began some intense research about weight loss and fitness.

The first thing I did was get back to my “prayer walking”, a meditation habit where I walked about 5 km while reciting prayers using an Anglican Rosary. I then worked to increase that to 10km a day, and then the purchase of the Nike+iPod system to track my steps – only it doesn’t – then inspired me to push myself ever further, until one day (July 1, 2008) I decided I was going to walk a Marathon.

So, here I am.

What I envision this blog to be is a source of information and encouragement to help others (as well as myself) push themselves to greater health, both physically and spiritually. As it says in the New Testament book of 1 Timothy, Chapter 4, verse 8: For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. That would be my goal!

I thought that Mondays might be a good day to set up some challenges for us to follow together. My goal would be for all of us to grow in a kind of community. Then on Wednesdays I’d talk about what I’m learning physically in a broader sense, and on Fridays I’d share what’s going on with me spiritually, and through those posts invite some good discussion.

I follow the path of Christian Spirituality. It’s quite possible that you don’t and aren’t interested in learning about it. Hey, that’s cool. One thing I have discovered though, is that the more I interest myself in what others believe, the more I understand people who make different choices, and the clearer my own beliefs become. Let me challenge you to do the same. You may find that as I give out challenges for Spiritual fitness on my blog, that they’re able to be adapted to your own beliefs, and will help you grow in your own chosen faith. I hope so.

So I plan to kick this off on Monday with the first challenges. I hope you’ll be there, invite some friends to join us, and that you’ll leave a comment, question, word of encouragement, share a frustration, or celebrate your triumphs with us.

Oh, and don’t worry! I hope to keep the posts MUCH, MUCH shorter than this!