Week 4 and 5 of marathon training

I just realized I started off with weekly updates on my training, but stopped at the end of week 3...And now it's almost the end of week 5. Oops. Training continues to go well. Here are a few observations:

• I've lost 4lbs since starting this training program on Jan 1st, despite eating way more often. I am sure this will continue... Again, I reiterate, I don't feel I need to lose any more weight (and am not trying to do so), but if I do, I won't mind. It'd only serve to aid my running and make me faster.

• Everything is way easier than when I was training for the half marathon last year. My body has definitely adapted a ton, and running long and often feels so much much much more natural now. Long runs don't take so much out of me. In fact, I often forget that I ran that day if I go early enough in the morning. I have never felt like I may be overdoing it. I've not yet had to skip a single workout due to fatigue. I've not made a single excuse to get me out of running. When I trained for the half marathon last year, this was not the case: I was often in doubt about the amount I was running and often felt exhausted after my training runs. I definitely missed workouts once in a while. Not this time. Not yet anyway.

• The LONG runs haven't come around yet...so perhaps the above bullet-point will be negated. My first longer-than-ever training run will be on Feb 19th - a 23km training run which will be the longest run I've ever done (i.e., it's longer than a half marathon). After that, they just keep getting longer....right up to 32km. I'm nervously excited!

• I've set my target finish time at a very conservative 4:30. Of course, I hope to pleasantly surprise myself and finish sooner than that. But as it's my first marathon, I want to run to finish smart as my first goal. Time goals can come later. So far, my pace for all my training runs could easily have me at a 4:00-4:15 finish time on race day. At the moment, whether I'm running easy days, slow days, fast days, whatever, I'm ending up usually at least 20s/km  faster than what I need to be to train for that conservative finish time. And I don't feel like I'm pushing myself; this has all been very comfortable effort-wise. It feels at times impossible to slow down as much as my training plan tells me to slow down. I'm going to see how things go once those long training runs come into play and if my pacing can remain consistently as it has. If not, no big deal. If yes, I can consider changing my target training paces, altering my marathon race pace, and setting a slightly less conservative finish time goal. Just something to consider....again, this is my first marathon and I don't need to overdo it. It's all about being smart the first time. 

This last little while has also come with every excuse in the book NOT to work out...it rained a ton, temperatures were bitterly cold, I caught a cold, I got hit in the face with a soccer ball and ended up with a swollen nose, mouth, cheek and strained TMJ so much I couldn't close my jaw for a day (and I'm back to mushy food again), and so on.... But I'm loving running 5 days/week again, loving that I'm training for a goal race again, and enjoying the process of testing me, my body and my limits. Why would I possibly want to skip a workout when it feels this good? :-)