run 6 miles without stopping

Only 20.2 away from a marathon.

According to the marathon training schedule I’m using, I was supposed to run 6 miles two weeks ago.

I found it weird that the schedule jumped from running 30 minutes to doing 5 miles in a single week. (It went from 4 30-minute runs to 3/4/3/5 miles.) I am a slow runner, so that meant I was going from running 2.75 miles one week to running 5 the next, which is almost a doubling of mileage. But, if as the book claims, a gazillion other people have successfully completed the program, who was I to question the schedule?

I did every mental trick I knew to make it through the 5 miles and felt like I was dying during and after. Later, I got ill and ran a fever, which I rarely ever do. The next week I was supposed to do 3/4/3/6. I barely made it through the 4-miler, tried the 6 anyway . . . mistake! I made it a rough and horrible 4 miles, then ended up flat on my back for the rest of the evening.

Lesson learned: Listen to my body! (And my mind, which told me the mileage increaase didn’t seem right.)

Last week, I repeated the 3/4/3/5 week, and it was better. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t feel like the grim reaper was hovering nearby.

This week, I’ve run 3/4/3 so far. Those runs went pretty well. This weekend, I’m trying the 6 miles again.

This is one of my (many) goals on the way to running a marathon. I just ran my longest lifetime run of 5 miles. 6 miles is my next milestone.

I was up to 4+ when I hiked Murietta Falls and bruised my tailbone – am back to elliptical training and jogging at 5 minutes at a time for short times – going to give it another two weeks and hope I’ll be back up to speed for Bay to Breakers – would like to complete this goal that day!