Inspiration Board and Marathon Training Plans

One of the things on my 32 in 32 list was to create an inspiration board to put above my treadmill. Over the spring and early summer I had saved a number of magazine clippings and issues of Runner's World to use in making it. However, I ended up jettisoning them in the weeks leading up to our move to Anchorage. A few weeks ago I restarted gathering images and this past week finally had enough clippings from magazines - mainly Runner's World but also some Yoga Journal to create a collage of sorts on a pinboard.

Last night I hung the board up above my treadmill along with my two most meaningful medals from races. The medal on the left is from my first marathon, which I also ran to raise money as part of Team in Training, and the medal on the right is from the race where I ran my fastest half-marathon.

I'll probably be looking at this board a lot over the next few months as marathon training with a half-marathon in the mix for some more current race experience thrown in kicks off on Monday. Because I haven't run a full for a couple of years and because of where my conditioning is currently at I chose a Beginning Marathon Program in The Runner's World Big Book of Marathon and Half-Marathon Training and made just a few tweaks to it. This plan calls for running 4 days a week most weeks and gives me the flexibility to attend a yoga class each week as well as the Belly Dance class that I am signed up to take later this month and next. Since several of you have asked about training, I'm sharing my plan here.

Week	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	4 mi	3 mi	Belly Dance	5 mi LSD	15 mi
2	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	3 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	7 mi LSD	17 mi
3	3 mi	Yoga	Rest	4 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	9 mi LSD	20 mi
4	Yoga	4 mi	Timed Mile	3 mi	4 mi	Belly Dance	7 mi LSD	19 mi
5	Rest	Yoga	4 mi	3 mi	Rest	5 mi	10 mi LSD	22 mi
6	Rest	4 mi	Rest	3 mi	5 mi	Yoga	12 mi LSD	24 mi
7	Rest	4 mi	Rest	4 mi	4 mi	Yoga	15 mi LSD	27 mi
8	Rest	4 mi	Rest	Rest	2 mi	Rest	San Diego Half-Marathon	19.1 mi
9	Rest	4 mi	Yoga	6 mi	Rest	4 mi	16 mi LSD	30 mi
10	Rest	4 mi	Yoga	6 mi	Rest	4 mi	18 mi LSD	32 mi
11	Rest	6 mi	Yoga	5 mi	Rest	5 mi	20 mi  LSD	36 mi
12	Rest	7 mi	Timed Mile	7 mi	Yoga	7 mi	14 mi LSD	36 mi
13	Rest	6 mi	Yoga	7 mi	Rest	7 mi	20 mi LSD	40 mi
14	Rest	7 mi	Yoga	7 mi	Rest	7 mi	13 mi LSD	34 mi
15	Rest	5 mi	Yoga	4 mi	Rest	5 mi	10 mi LSD	24 mi
16	Rest	3 mi	Rest	4 mi	Rest	Rest	Vancouver Marathon	33.2 mi

I plan to typically do speedwork on Thursdays and run most of the miles on those days as either part of tempo runs, progressive runs or 800 repeats. I'm also giving myself permission to ditch a few miles here and there during this training if some snow shoeing opportunities come along. I've heard it's a great workout and am keen to try it once we have more snow again.

Have you taken any dance classes? Are you training for a spring marathon or half-marathon?