Day 50 of the 100 Days to Run a Marathon Challenge
Day 50 of the 100 Days to Run a Marathon Challenge
It's day 50 of my 100 Days to Run a Marathon Challenge and the first thing that I can say about this challenge is that I'm a bit behind schedule. As mentioned in my first post, The 100 Days to Run a Marathon Challenge, I don't really have a schedule or a plan on how I will achieve this objective, my only plan is to incrementally run longer distances, so around day 50 I should be running 21 kilometers in one running session.
Image source: Wikimedia
Am I running 21 kilometers in a running session these days? Not really, yesterday I've come close to running a semi-marathon, I did about 19 kilometers of running and hiking. The explanation for the hiking part is this: a part of my running itinerary took me up a forested hill, which is ideal for hiking, I haven't done any hiking in quite a while and the peacefulness of the forest, the coolness and the better quality of the air, the absence of buildings, cars and people made me want to linger around more.
My plan for the next runs is this one: Tuesdays - a slow, 10K run, Thursdays - a faster, 4-5K run which might include stairs running, Sundays - a slow, 21K run. This is a change from my original plan of incrementally running longer distances and is partially inspired by the "usual" plans of training for a marathon. I will do this for the next 3-4 weeks, increasing the distances a bit after each week with 2 or 2,5 kilometers.
The "deadline" for this challenge is 26 of June but I want to accomplish it earlier because around that date we will be almost one month into summer and the temperatures will be high. I don't know how it is for others but for me, high temperatures mean a drop of 10 to 30 percent in my energy levels, performance, motivation, everything. So, ideally for me would be to end this challenge in the next 4-5 weeks top, even if that means that I will have to make a jump from running 20K+ to a marathon.