When You Can't Race....Coach!

So I've been missing the ramp up to marathon training and I am already thinking about the summer and how long slow Sunday morning runs are going to be short slow Sunday morning runs...which is fine because really at the end of this I get a little baby....however, that doesn't mean that I'm not missing the racing and marathon training.

However, I have found that I get to coach all the people in my life to run the races they are training for. Ok...all the people in my life is Jason and my parents, but whatever it's enough. I'm trying to get my mom motivated to walk 3-4 days a week and so I call her on the days that she should walk and ask if she's gone walking. She tries to pull the "But I'm too tired when I get home from work". To which I respond, "Um...I've been running throughout this pregnancy and when I get home from work I literally could fall asleep right as I walk in, so that's no excuse". Of course it isn't an excuse anyways, so she's getting there and walking more.

Jason as you know is running a 1/2 marathon on August 2nd that I am also signed up for but I don't think we need a 20 week pregnant lady running a 1/2 marathon. So I layed out his training program and it's fun to watch him train on his own. He has only ever run with me, so I think this is going to be a great opportunity for him to learn the little things about pacing yourself (instead of just following whatever pace I'm setting), and using the Garmin to your advantage and not too obsessively. He's been a lot faster than we thought he would be which is great. Maybe that year and a half of lounging paid off. Who knew?

The last person I'm working with is my dad. He's going to be running the Chicago Marathon in 2010, the year he turns 60. Wait...how is he going to train for the marathon when he lives on a sailboat you ask? That answer to that question deserves it's own post so stay tuned for that. In short my Dad and Stepmom will be in Chicago from August of 2009 to January of 2011 (yeah you read that right...a year and a half!). So while they are here he'll have plenty of time to train. I have decided to train with him for the 2010 marathon as I'll just be finishing up pushing a giant thing out of me and probably don't want to jump into tons of training and speedwork and 8 minute miles. More to the point I probably won't be able to. So Dad and Daughter are going to train together and it's been really fun thinking about how to structure that training, because it has to be a bit different that my last few years of training. So I'm already on him to get some running in on the beaches down in the Caribean which I think he's doing. He'll be back in Grenada in the next couple days and I think he'll be able to do some more consistant running while there before he gets back to Chicago.

So with all that going on, and my own slow 3-4 mile runs I've been keeping my running brain active. Although....doesn't make me miss the training any less. In good news this is the best I have felt starting some new training in a long time. I have no leg pain and my breathing is good...oh wait...because I'm running 11 minute miles you say...yeah that's probably it...but still it's nice.