Well I Guess I’m Running A Marathon
I officially registered for the Rock N Roll San Antonio Marathon. It is both exciting and a little scary. Ahh. It isn’t until November but that is not so far away. I need to start training in July and to answer your question Nicole, I have no idea what training plan I am going to use. While training for the two half marathons I ran, I used the silver plan from The Complete Book of Running for Women and that worked well for me. I met my time goals and stayed injury free. But I am looking at other options because it is a heavy running load, 5 days a week. I had a hard time fitting in crosstraining but may still use it again and just try to be more diligent about fitting my other activities in. Hal Higdon’s programs I’ve heard are good and then there is Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning which quite a few people have found success with. I don’t think I can do the Runner’s World Run Less Run Faster marathon training because I like to run more than 3 days a week and having all my runs be hard runs does not sound appealing to me. But I can see how it would work for some people, who are limited on time and are injury prone. If anyone has any other recommendations please share..any advice on training is also welcome.
Training in the Texas summer heat will be challenging. I will need to either get a super early start or run at the gym. Once summer kicks in and the lows are 80′s and 90′s outdoor running is a challenge. Having my children home will also pose a schedule conflict, since my husband is usually the one who goes to the gym early to workout, so the treadmill may be my only option on many days. I would like to run another half as part of my training in the early fall, we will see if I can find one.
Getting through training injury free will be priority number one. My second goal is to train to finish in under 4 hours. I am ready to start training and have confidence that I can both finish and meet my goal. San Antonio here I come 
Filed under: Running Blog
Exciting news! Congrats on the decision. I can’t wait to follow your progress.
Congrats on signing up! Though somewhat scary, it must be so cool to have the prospect of a 26.2 miles race to work up to.
Have fun preparing
I used the Non-Runners Marathon Guide’s training schedule- one of the girls I was training with picked it. It was good, I was not as much into the book as she was, but we were all very well prepared and had an easy run. We were all runners before, so anyone can use the plan!
Hi! I came over here after reading about you from Chicrunner. Congratulations on choosing to run a marathon. You’ll never be the same again (ha ha).
You might look intot he Pfitzinger plans. They are quite demanding – both in time and effort. I am using the first 10 weeks on his 24/55 plan to build base, but after that point both mileage and commitment increases. I think you can find the 18/55 plan on the Internet.
Good luck!
You are going to ROCK!!!! YAY!
I’m so excited for you, and I will be here following along! 
So exciting!!! Good luck with your training.
I don’t have any recommendations, I am following Runner’s World training, but that’s because I am a nut and I bike and swim a lot too.
Hey! Thanks for the shout out! I’m training for my first marathon and i was curious what plans you were using. I bought both run less, run faster and pfitz advanced marathoning.
I would love to do advanced marathoning but it might be too much for my first. i may tweek it, and attempt it but who knows!
i’m running chicago and its october 11th so maybe we can share thoughts!
Good luck on the training. I am also going to run San Antonio, so maybe I’ll see you out on the streets of Austin. Stay cool and hydrated and you’ll be okay.
Yea, Congrats on signing up! You are going to be AWESOME! Good luck with the training.
Thanks everyone for your congrats, motivation, kind comments and tips! You all help me more than you will ever know!!
A marathon!! Awesome! You’re gonna love the Rock-n-Roll marathon. I’ve not done the one you’re running, but I’ve done the San Diego one and the Country Music Marathon. Both had great crowd support and great music the entire course. Look forward to following your training.
That’s awesome! There’s nothing like your first marathon – enjoy the journey
I would suggest checking out if there are any local running clubs/teams in your area that have beginner marathon training programs (if your schedule allows it). I trained for my first full last year (Nike Women’s Marathon in San Fran) with Team in Training. I definitely benefited from having the coaches put together a training schedule that matched my experience/ability and the camaraderie of training with other newbies.
Good luck!