I've decided, inadvertently, to try a brand-new method of marathon training. It may come as no surprise that I'm calling it The Gibbs Method. Here's how it works. Sign up for a fall marathon and a winter marathon. Train for a fall marathon starting in the spring, following a regular training schedule with increasing mileage until you hit 20, and then taper. Run (or run/walk) said marathon in the fall. Three weeks later, run a half. Two weeks after that, run a 15 mile long run. Finally, 4 weeks before the winter marathon, run another 20 miler. No taper for your second marathon.
In between these, run a random mix of mileage at varying paces, ranging from 1 - 13 miles. (I say varying paces because at this point in the year, it's very hard to find a consistent group of people who want to run long runs for no reason, and can hold the pace I want to hold.) Add in short 3 mile runs on the treadmill. These are for one mile warm-ups, one mile sprint intervals and one mile hill inclines. Your one-mile warm-up should be at your best pace, which should be faster than your marathon pace. Example, my one mile warm-up is around a 7:40, my goal marathon pace is around an 8:50. Sprints should be done in 1 minute on/1 minute off intervals. And by off, I mean, walking. And by on, I mean a full out sprint, at least 2 minutes faster than your fastest pace. Hills should be done on at least a 7 incline. If you're only going to 7, you need to be running up that hill at your regular race pace, or a bit faster, for .10 of a mile. Then you get to pause for 1 minute. This is your pretend walk back down the hill, since you're not going to bother lowering and raising the treadmill incline every .10 of a mile. Repeat for the full mile. Now, if you want to get REAL crazy, you can go above a 7, all the way up to the highest incline setting on your treadmill. For the one I use, that's a 15. Be prepared to die if you do this. I can run up the 7 at a regular race pace of 8:30ish, give or take a few minutes, if I'm not feeling or really rocking it. At the 15, I barely made it up the .10 of a mile in a 10:00 run. It's a real challenge, but I like it, so I keep doing it. Plus, I'm sure it will help when I get to Louisiana and there is nary a hill to be seen. My legs and lungs will be all, "whhhhhhhattttt?So flat. NBD, we got this." Or, at least, I assume that's how it's going to go. Just realize that after the first time, your calf muscles are going to feel like the fires of hell are burning deep within, and you might actually want to consider crawling up the stairs the next day. That feeling goes away a little bit if you stretch and definitely gets better the more you do this activity.
To really complete this cycle of training, you have to throw in at least 4 days of cross-training activity that fully engage the rest of your muscles, continue to help you build endurance, and work your core. That means something like Cross-Fit, bike riding, or, obviously, boxing classes. Trust me when I say this method will never work if you don't do any sort of extra workouts with those runs sprinkled in. Since I've yet to actually put this method to the final test, I can't say it will work for you either, so, unless you're looking for the lazy man's plan, I wouldn't take this to heart until I can prove it's worth in January. After January though, if I do manage to hit that sub-4 marathon, I'm taking this plan to the bank. *patent pending* Pretty sure this how the internet works, so now that it's official, no stealing. Bonus points if you know that that is referencing.
Now that you have the inclusive Gibbs marathon training plan, I hope you're excited to check back in a month and see how well it worked out. I know you are. The good news here is that I did re-order some Tailwind, and if my Christmas list was taken seriously, I should have another bag on the way, which means I'll be solid for Louisiana and Boston. I've always been convinced Tailwind worked, but I've never been more convinced than I was today, after not using it for a few months, and then using it again at boxing today. There was a serious upswing in my participation and endurance for the entire class, which is good, because I've been lacking in the push department lately. Also, my poor little toe still hurts, and though I never saw a doctor about it, I'm pretty sure there's a break or a fracture in there somewhere. However, it doesn't hurt enough to stop running or working out, and I was getting super bored not being able to do anything anyways, so I figure if it really starts to hurt again, I'll throw some tape back on it. Because that's how I roll, and it's easier than actually doing anything about it.
Aside from all that, even though this week has been totally crazy, it's one of those weeks where I've simultaneously felt like an awesome teacher and an awful one. Awesome because I just corrected the tests from the multiplication unit we just did in 4th grade and all the kids really rocked it. They showed their work for every problem, they were using the BUS method, and the open responses were set up accurately. It was a moment of YASSS for me. But, then, it was also awful, because we had to cut half of the basketball team. There's a couple of us coaching the 4th and 5th grade boys basketball team this year, and I guess we're real popular, because we had 38 boys sign up. Yup. Apparently that's way too many, which I should have known, but knowing next to nothing about basketball, didn't really occur to me. So in the end, the three of us got together and decided that the best thing to do was to cut some of the 4th grade boys. The 5th grade boys get their spots automatically because it's their last year at the school, but the 4th graders had to go, unfortunately. And if you think being a teacher is hard, try being a teacher who also has to tell 18 ten-year-olds that they can't play on the basketball team this year. Because no matter where you teach, no matter how tough your students act, when it comes to something like this, suddenly they're all just 10 years old and crying in the hallway. Oh, and how to handle that type of a situation is definitely not taught in any class you're going to take, so if you plan on being a teacher, you better be prepared to face that eventually.
From experience, I've taught in all levels, whether as a sub, teacher, or coach, and there is ALWAYS tears. And yes, this is an inner-city school, these aren't coddled little boys who are used to having everything they want in life. They're tough kids, who understand and are somewhat used to disappointment, which made it even harder. I suppose I had another awesome moment yesterday though, when a third grader was super upset that he failed his eye test for the second year in a row. So I showed him my contacts and talked to him about how I had glasses and had to wear them or the contacts every day. He came back today and told me that I made him feel better about glasses after I showed him my contacts, so he went home and told him mom he needed them, and now he's going to get them next week. Actually, these two paragraphs are a great example of real world teaching experience. If you want to be a teacher and really understand what it's like on a daily basis, look no further. This is it. A series of events in which you feel awesome, awful, terrible, loved, and hated, sometimes all at once, and all in a 6 hour time block. Throw in a 20 second bathroom break and you've got teaching. Of course, then you continue to worry about the kids long after they've left the school, and the feelings keep rolling in when you're correcting homework, classwork, or tests, and the scores are either amazing or terrible.
We did also have a nice visit from the Greyhound Friends Organization, which is out in Hopkinton, MA. The third grade just wrapped up a unit on helper animals, and the Greyhound Friends came out with their dogs so the children could see and learn about them. This is the second year they've done it, and it is awesome. There's nothing cooler than dogs in school and the kids loved learning about the dogs and being able to meet and pet them. If you ever need an assembly, I definitely recommend getting in touch with these people.
So that's everything from the past two weeks, I suppose. Global warming, which obviously doesn't exist, has kept the temperatures around here in the 50s for a while, so that's real great. Definitely doesn't feel like Christmas with this weather hanging around. But it's great for running, so while I'm not a fan of the reason for the weather, or the lack of Christmas-y feelings, I do enjoy the extra time to run outside.
And now please enjoy some pictures of the Greyhounds and anything else I may find interesting at the moment.
A manual collator. The best invention you didn't know you needed.
Oh right, Google sent these awesome kits as a holiday gift for using ProjectFi. It's a basic pack of Legos with instructions for how to make a phone stand or a cable organizer. I went with the phone stand and I really do love it. Plus they sent an extra power cable, since the Nexus uses the USB Type-C, which isn't commonly found yet. Yet another reason to love Google. They're always thinking ahead. What other company would send a second charger to every customer just to make their life a little easier? Thanks Google.
