Dublin Marathon 2016 - Mentored Novices Thread

@Kittyclaws - I hope your finding your energy back soon enough. As per Firedance and the advice of others, look after yourself... It may be worth getting yourself checked out again, frustrating as that may be..

Those of you tired from the weekend's excursions, and/or maybe not feeling the love as much as you would like to, this is only very natural at this point. Your mileage is increasing week on week, and you've ran a hard 10k race this weekend - it would be weird if you weren't feel tired. It's getting real! I think Murph_D and Myles touched on the subject - your body is starting to adapt to the strain your putting it under. It's responding by increasing your endurance and preparing you for even longer and harsher events. No wonder you're tired. :rolleyes:

Two things are worth repeating over and over again. (1) Trust the plan and stick with it - the plans are designed to get novice marathon runners to the startline of their first marathon, with a good shot at getting to the finishline. Respect the distance and the training required to get there. Someone mentioned climbing Mt Everest. I can't even imagine how much training and prep is needed for that, yet people manage to do it. This journey is similar. You've signed up and taken giant strides already, but you're not there, yet. There are hundreds of miles still to cover... (2) Look after yourself - start going to bed earlier to clock up decent hours of sleep, because you need it (and you're worth it ). Have a waterbottle with you, at all times, and aim to drink several liters a day, every day. Improve your diet, even small, structural changes can make a big difference. It's time to start being unsociable, go home early from a night out, reduce your alcohol intake. Your body is telling you that it's responding to all you're asking it to do, give it a chance to adapt and get stronger! And if you need a day off, scrap those 3/4 easy miles and take the day off! Go to the cinema, take the better half for dinner, go the zoo with the kids (and don't check-out the incline on Chesterfield Avenue), do something fun, non-running related. Look after yourselves! It's going to be tougher, not easier, and you need to help your body out :eek:

Lastly, the conversation about expectations, and possible disappointment not meeting targets, on the day itself. I strongly urge you to not even start thinking about this yet.

Firedance said jokingly (offline) that I should know *exactly* what you guys are talking about - and she's right (as always). Last year, I had prepped almost obsessively. My pre-DCM running history and times over the shorter distances suggested that a sub-4h was well on the cards. I was thinking 3h50. I ran a cool 10k PB just before training started (which still stands) and crushed (in relative terms, obviously ) the FD10. I studied the course, ran 20M of it with diego_b and other novices as a joint LSR. On the day itself, I was exceptionally lucky to run with a very experienced marathoner as my personal pacer. What could possibly go wrong? Well, I cramped up badly at 21M and that was that. I was lucky to be able to finish at all.

Why am I telling you all this? Just to illustrate that there are no guarantees on the day itself. All the training and prep does not automatically translate in the goal you have set yourself, after all, 26 miles in uncharted territory for almost all of you - and therefore it is important to not get too hung up on goals and target times.

Luckily, Dubgal had made us do the mental prep for exactly this eventuality. Of the many amazing things she told us last year, for me "Don't be too attached to the outcome" is etched in my brain. Especially if you think this will be your only go at it. For me and almost all my fellow 2015 novices, the whole marathon-training journey was such an amazing experience, and the day itself something I'll never forget. That it took me 242 minutes instead of the utterly arbitrary 240 I thought I was capable of, well, I can live with that.

My best advice I can give you, using all the points in this and other posts from far more experienced folks than me, is to focus to get to the startline in one piece. As many of you are now experiencing, this is proving to be hard enough as it is... Let's worry about the time it takes to get to the finishline closer to the day. :pac: :cool: