Hey Marathon... it's been a while.

Marathon training, here I come. For better or for worse.

For no obvious reason I’ve been hesitant to admit this (mostly to myself), but I have officially started training for a road marathon in spring 2023. It’s the first tangible running project since Western States 100. Although much smaller, of course. To be honest, my heart is not on fire. Not YET. However, I clearly feel that this is what I want to do right now. And to be honest, what else would I be doing with my (running) life anyway?

I recall very well how much I enjoyed most of my previous road marathon training cycles. If things are going well, you can literally see progress on a weekly basis and the whole training is peppered with loads of micro successes. It’s a well-balanced allround training approach including speed, endurance and speed-endurance workouts. What else could you ask for?

But it’s way too early to go wild on tempo workouts, track intervals and Sunday long runs. I guess my training for the rest of the year will be quite similar to last year’s preparation for Western States. A long and consistent build up of basic endurance. Something I neglected stoically since I started running. I suspect it’s good for something.

Either way, I am excited to embark on this new training cycle with my coach Karim once again. We’ve been through a lot together and Karim’s calmness, optimism and confidence have been my beacon, especially when things got bad and then worse. I am very much looking forward to a lot of "rolling hills" and "how slow can you jog?" workouts ;-)

And off we go.