How I Went From Living Off Frozen Pizza, Burritos, and Trader Joe?s Wine to Running the Marathon in 280 Days
Last November, after having a couple of beers and playing around on social media, I decided I was going to run my first marathon in October. I was 34 at the time, my buddy needed a couple of extra people to join his marathon charity team, and looking in the mirror, well, I realized I would do well to lay off the donuts.
When I first announced to my friends and family that I was planning on running my first Chicago Marathon, the reaction from my inner circle was universal.
Laughter.
“You do realize the marathon is 26.2 miles and, you know, you’re not exactly a runner, right?” they so helpfully pointed out. “Plus, you’re not exactly a runner.”
They…weren’t wrong.
I was a high school cross country runner, but that was 17 years ago and I wasn’t very fast back then. I had also technically been a professional runner as one of the Milwaukee Brewers’ racing sausages, but that was also more than a decade ago and plus a marathon is a lot farther than the roughly 200 meters I would run around a baseball field while dressed like a giant sausage.
Since then though, I’ve fallen into not-so-great physical habits. My diet largely consists of frozen pizza and burritos and Trader Joe’s wine, and I hadn’t been on a regular exercise regimen since high school.
Things change though, and 11 months later, my friends and family, well, they’re not laughing anymore.
On Sunday, I’ll head to the starting line to run my first Chicago Marathon in the best physical shape of my life, this despite the fact that when I started training nearly 280 days ago on New Year’s Day, I couldn’t run a half a mile without stopping.
I thought I was going to hate the process. I thought it was going to be complicated and difficult and, frankly, when my brother in law told me over pizza and beers at Piece in August that “Your sister and I thought you would’ve dropped out by now,” I didn’t disagree with him.
If I, the kind of guy who actively avoided exercise and in the past would regularly buy an extra burrito after a drunken night in Wrigleyville for the sole purpose of leaving it on my nightstand so I don’t have to get out of bed to get my hungover breakfast, can get into good enough shape to run a marathon in 280 days or less, you can too.
Here’s how:
Know what you don’t know:
Start your training early: Most marathon training plans generally don’t start until around 18 weeks out from race day. Sounds simple, right? Those plans also expect that you’ll be able to run three miles straight on day one, with a long run of around six miles that first week. Spoiler alert: If you weren’t much of a runner prior to signing up for the marathon, trying to run three miles cold sets you up for both injury and failure. That’s why I started my training on New Year’s Day rather than waiting until the first week of June to begin running. If I was going to do this, I wanted to do it right.
The good news – There are apps out there that can help you ease into a training regimen and build up your stamina. I downloaded the C25K app from Zen Labs on my iPhone, which provided me with a detailed walk/run regiment designed to build up my stamina, starting on day one, where I’d alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 minutes of running and gradually building up over eight weeks until I could eventually run 30 minutes straight without stopping. Zen Labs also has a 10k app which works you up to running a full six miles without stopping.
Which leads me to my next point…
Join a running group: Signing up for group training program was the best thing I’ve done aside from signing up for the marathon itself. It provided me with a detailed training program but, more importantly, running with a group meant that I had a group that ran at my pace to do the Saturday long runs with. This is incredibly important because running alone leaves you alone with your thoughts and eventually you’re going to get sick of yourself. My Saturday group runs kept me sane throughout the process because I was surrounded by 20-30 people every Saturday who were running at my pace and going through the exact same process that I was. Plus, over time, those people became an integral part of my weekends, going from complete strangers to friends as we built up our mileage and pushed ourselves even farther, together.
Find your reason: There are going to be days when you don’t feel like running. Your body hurts. You had been out late the night before. It’s too hot or too cold outside. You have a lot going on at your job and feel like you’re just too tired to get out there.
It happens.
It happens to all of us, and it’s going to happen to you more than once. But if you’re going to build up your mileage, you’re going to have to find something that motivates you to get out of bed in the morning and get your mileage in. For me, it was the charity I’m running for, Open Heart Magic, which helps kids in hospitals learn how to do magic tricks. Knowing that I was running the marathon for something bigger than myself gave me the extra push I needed to get out of bed because in my mind, I wasn’t just running for myself, I was running for the kids whose lives my fundraising efforts are going to improve.
Let the doubt fuel you: I’ve always worked better when I have a chip on my shoulder, and the early reaction to my decision to run the marathon made me even more motivated to prove everyone wrong. If people question your ability or your desire to run a marathon, don’t take it personally. Prove them wrong.
Most importantly, enjoy the process: Training for a marathon isn’t easy, but it does teach you a lot about yourself. The farther you get into training, the more you find yourself looking back at how far you’ve come.
And who knows, maybe 10 months into the training process, you’ll find yourself wanting to do another one.
Matt Lindner is a Chicago-based writer and editor whose work has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, RedEye, and on ESPN.com among other outlets. He will be running his first Chicago Marathon on October 8. Find him on Twitter @mattlindner.
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