Fitness Swellness: Marathon training tips from Nike Master Trainer Marie Purvis

One fall 2013 marathon down, one to go!

Yeah, you read that right. About two months ago, I decided I’d run not just one marathon, but two, this fall. One month apart.

I ran the first one a week and a half ago — the Nike Women’s Marathon in  San Francisco. And I PB’d! Sweet!

My next one (which will be my fifth marathon — me. the girl who struggled with one minute of running in 2007!) is on November 17 in Philadelphia. I was a bit nervous about racing four weeks after NWM so I spoke to Nike Master Trainer Marie Purvis for some advice.

1. “You only have three more weeks of work,” she said. Purvis recommended one week of recovery post-NWM (Ah, a blissful week of rest and two massage appointments!), and then looking at the following three weeks as tapering. Let me tell you, framing it as a month of tapering sounds most excellent to me!
2. “Run the three times a week as you have been doing, and add some cross training.” The distances for the once weekly long runs: 18 miles, 13 miles and 10 miles (that’s 29k, 21k and 16k). For cross training, she suggested yoga and swimming.
3. “Decide which race is more important for you.” If it’s Nike San Fran, then go all out in that one, and then just recover and do what you can in Philly, said Purvis. If it’s Philly, then use NWM as a training run.
4. “Eat clean.” Purvis followed a mostly paleo diet for one marathon and drank wine and ate non-paleo for another marathon and found it made a huge difference in her performance.

Most of this sounded great to me…until I realized that one week post-NWM, the 18 miles she told me to run is practically 29k (I had to whip out my little metric conversion app). Faced with running 29k a week after NWM was daunting mentally, so I decided on 27k instead last Sunday.

I’m also not so thrilled about the eating-clean  bit…and I just can’t. I  love all sorts of food (healthy and the occasionally not so healthy dishes) too much to give it up. Plus, I’m traveling the week prior to the Philly Marathon and I’m not willing to give up eating the delicious meals I have in store for that trip. If that’s what’ll keep me from a fast marathon finish, you know, I’m ok with that.

And with that — there’s 18 days to go until the Philly Marathon…!

6 Comments October 31, 2013

Here I go: I’m going to run a marathon (gulp)

“Why on EARTH would you do that to yourself?”

I’d just cheered on my sister in her first marathon some years back and this was what I was thinking. I had no concept of what 42.2k meant (other than freakin’ long), I just knew she’d been running for more than four hours. FOUR HOURS. Hence my “Why oh why????” I mean, sure she looked happy, but lots of things make me happy–like sleeping an extra four hours.

And here I am in 2012 planning to run my first marathon.

See, since then, I’ve somehow become a runner (check out what I get from running here on my post at The Kit). And I’ve got nine half-marathons and one 30k race under my belt (that’s my pile of medals above) and I need a new challenge. And short of running a half even faster (which would call for killer speed training), I’d rather double the distance — so I think that means I’m only somewhat a glutton for punishment? Or maybe I’m just crazy, like that blogger chick on the current season of The Bachelor.

Wish me luck. Training will be hard.

And long.

And sweaty.

Oh. Boy.

Leave a Comment January 3, 2012

The opportunity cost of running (for moi)

Oh, brunch, how I love thee…

And yet I must go brunch-less when training for a race. Le sigh. Those long morning runs conflict with prime brunch-ing time.

What else? Read more about the opportunity cost of running Health & Swellness-style on thekit.ca today.

Leave a Comment December 8, 2011