Marathoners: Fatigue is Your Friend

As a few friends and I "reach our peak" training weeks for our October marathons, we are finding ourselves unusually fatigued. However, it is normal and expected. Training should feel hard and you should feel tired. Sure there might be a day here and there you are feeling great, but there will be plenty of days when you are feeling tired, fatigued and barely plodding through an 11 minute mile. Those days are tough but necessary. Last week, I cranked out a 45 mile week, which wasn't my highest volume ever, but I covered 35 miles within 72 hours. 3 out of the 4 runs were with friends so I was definitely booking it at a quicker pace because of that. So a few days this past week, I had to literally "take it easy" to recover. For this training cycle leading up to the Hartford Marathon, I have been continuing with strength training but now I'm done with lifting 50 pounds for 50 reps. (After all, I HAVE the endurance I need.) Now I am cranking up the weights and I am finding the most incredible thing. Since early August (and after recovery from the San Francisco Marathon), I have incrementally been adding weights (every 2 days) to every machine I use. I started at 50 pounds on each machine and now I'm ridiculously doing this... Mind you I only weigh 100 pounds total! As of last night, I could do all 3 sets (10 reps each): ABS = 95 ; LEG EXTENSION = 85 ; LEG CURL = 65 (my worst one); GLUTE = 125 ; HIP ADDUCTOR & ABDUCTOR = 105; TORSO ROTATION = 70 ; LEG PRESS = 210. Who would have ever thought?! But the cool thing is I'm hooked on it. I love feeling very strong and I'm not even done yet! I have a feeling this has contributed to my fatigue as I reach peak week, but it's so worth it. I think it will pay dividends on race day. We shall see!! So, I think this week and next I might let my running volume get to 50 miles per week, but I really do not feel like I have to do more than that because I'm also lifting every 2-3 days. Let's test out this theory in a few weeks!!! Good luck to all my marathoner friends. I can't wait to run another one myself but I also can't wait to cheer them on. Hubby is running Baystate and I hope he qualifies for Boston. I ran Baystate 2 years ago and loved that race.