Trying a New Strategy

Wow a lot has happened since my last blog entry. I won't try to recap it all. I will just share my new "running technique" that is really helping me to believe that finishing a marathon is truly in my cards. Bobby and I ran the Albuquerque half marathon behind several groups doing the "Galloway" method. They were running 1 minute and walking 1 minute. We played leap frog with them until about mile 9 or so, when our "run" could not keep up with their run/walk pattern. We thought, okay let's try this run/walk thing, but at that point our legs were already spent. So, I purchased a couple of the Galloway books (www.jeffgalloway.com), and felt encouraged by what I read. Then Bobby shared, that he ordered the interval timer so we didn't have to keep checking our watches to try the 1/1 method. Our first Thursday night run when he got his timer, we did 4 miles in a quicker time than I had done 4 miles in a long long time. I am not setting any speed goals, but I was amazed at how good I felt overall...didn't feel like dying or anything along the way. So we decided this would be the new approach. I of course, wanted my own timer, since I plan on taking the early start for the Greece marathon and don't want anyone else feel obligated to go early. So I got the bright pink one. Here's a photo of what my new best friend looks like:
It has really been working well for me. Bobby and I missed our regular Saturday long run, cuz we were in KS crewing for our friends running the 50 mile/100 mile Heartland run. You can read all about that adventure on Trail Zombie's or Bobby's blog. So we went out for a 10-mile weekday run, even though we were both still dragging a little from our 40 some odd hours of awakeness over the weekend. Here were our splits using the 1/1 method the entire way:

Mile 0-1: 13:38 (sometimes it's so hard to get started)
Mile 1-2: 13:13
Mile 2-3: 12:44
Mile 3-4: 13:09
Mile 4-5: 13:23
Mile 5-6: 13:06
Mile 6-7: 13:15
Mile 7-8: 13:26
Mile 8-9: 13:18
Mile 9-10: 13:51 (including walking up part of that darn turkey mountain hill back to the parking lot)
Mile 10-10.15: 2:38

I am so encouraged by the consistency of our miles while doing this technique. It will be interesting to see how it works out for me on the 22 mile run in a couple weeks.

Anyone that wants to try this out is more than welcome to hang out with me and/or Bobby!! We are both big believers...