She Runs by the Seashore

Disclaimer: I received four months of Endure Strong training to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find and write race reviews!

I have my Road Runners Club of America coaching certification, and that’s certainly been valuable for me, but there’s something about having a coach that isn’t yourself that makes you more accountable. Also, I’m not an Olympic athlete — and of course, I’m nowhere near that point.

So, when the opportunity came about through BibRave to join Team Endure Strong and be coached by Olympian Jared Ward, who just finished eighth at the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:09:25, I thought I’d give it a shot. Hey, I’d be happy with that time for my next half marathon.

I’m already finding it helpful to have a goal pace to shoot for and to have a plan written out, even though I have made some adaptations based on group runs and races.

We will also have biweekly coaching calls with Ward, and we had our first one Wednesday. After our first call, which centered around nutrition, I watched a public webinar that Ward did on his Boston Marathon experience, which was also interesting.

While I run all year, I don’t do as many races in the summer because of the heat as well as the lack of summer races, so my goal race will be the Baltimore 10 Miler on June 1. This only gave me a little less than six weeks to train, so I jumped right into the plan, since I recently finished marathon training and was running the appropriate amount of mileage that I could do so.

I’ll be training for a 10-miler, and there were not 10-miler plans, so I asked if I should choose a half marathon plan, and the answer was yes. There were numerous choices for plans, from beginner to elite.

I chose a 12 week intermediate plan that peaked at 35 miles, and when I loaded in my race date to the Final Surge platform we use, the plan started me in the middle of the plan. Andrew, a member of Team Endure Strong, has been great about responding to questions and messages. There’s also a team wall, where we can all share things about ourselves and our training.

I’ll be checking in after the Baltimore 10 Miler to talk more about training with Endure Strong, so stay tuned!

BibRave Run Streak on Strava

And now, onto the BibRave Run Streak! Anyone can participate in this streak by running or walking at least a mile per day in May and logging it on Strava. As you post about the streak, you can use hashtags #BibChat and #StravaRun.

I wanted to be able to participate in the streak but also follow the Endure Strong training plan as closely as I can given my existing commitments. The plan allows for one rest day per week, and I do think rest days are important. Since the streak includes walking, I will just walk a mile on the days that are rest days in my training program.

Want to join? Join Strava for free if you haven’t already, and then join the BibRave Strava Run Club, which is for everyone — not just BibRave Pros.

I’ve been on Strava a while — I’ve logged 796 activities over time — and I sync runs to there from my Garmin Forerunner 935.

Let me know if you’re planning to join the streak!

Like She Runs by the Seashore on Facebook here.