My biggest hesitation in running a second marathon within two months of my first was that the whole experience would feel saturated. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but for me it’s still important to take big chunks of time off from racing to rediscover purpose and refocus on training. After five months off, my most crowded racing season to date begins with the Vancouver Sun Run tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will serve as a nice warm-up rather than a detriment to next Sunday’s Vancouver Marathon. Here’s my 2014 schedule:

April 27 – Vancouver Sun Run
May 4 – Vancouver International Marathon
May 9 – Vancouver Beer Mile **
June 1 – Calgary Marathon
July 13 – Subaru Vancouver Triathlon (Sprint)
August 3 – New York City Triathlon
October 5 – Portland Half Marathon (tentative)
November 2 – New York City Marathon
** 2014 goal race

As my second marathon clinic and training cycle come to a close, I’ve been keeping mental notes of the things I believe have made a difference in contributing to a stronger session. Because I’ve made a number of changes since last year, the researcher in me hesitates to speculate exactly which of them have had the biggest impacts. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Schedule – maintaining my mileage while reducing the number of weekly runs from 5 to 4
• Equipment – I caved the day before my first marathon and got my first GPS watch (well, my friends got me one – thanks, friends!) which I’ve been using regularly to track my progress and training statistics. I also invested more research time and money into my shoes. I think I held onto a lower-end pair for too long during the last cycle that contributed to a minor injury.
• Cross training – more strength and core workouts, and of course more swimming and cycling
• Diet – no more meat!

Look, those changes even form an acronym, DECS, or CEDS. Maybe that will become a thing? Probably not.

As my race season gets underway tomorrow, wishing everyone out there a great start or continuation to your own racing season. Have so much fun!