Training for a marathon, effecting skating

[Landing~Lutzes]

I am training for my first marathon (so excited!) and I run 5 days a week, starting out at 30 minutes and working up. However, I noticed in my most recent lesson that since I have started training for my marathon, I have no expendable energy for skating. I am wobbly, my muscles are shaky, and I am quickly out of breath...and I thought I was a fairly fit person! I skate two-three times a week, and I am trying to figure out how to best manage running and skating. Does anyone have any advice on this matter, or perhaps has experience? Thank you for your help :-)

[4711]

Are you fueling your added activity?

Not eating enough or the wrong stuff can leave you drained and instead of gaining you lose fitness and muscle.

[moment of inertia]

I'm a little surprised you are running 5 days a week. I'm training for a half-marathon and the training plan I'm kinda-following (Hal Higdon) only has me running 3-4 days per week, cross-training/strength training 2-3 days per week, and resting 1 day per week. I don't know how you would build endurance running 5 days--you get no recovery time.

I skate three days per week and run three days per week. To balance this, my schedule looks like this:

Monday - maintenance run
Tuesday - maintenance run & public skate
Wednesday - skating lesson
Thursday - public skate
Friday - long run
Saturday - off
Sunday - strength training or maintenance run

I'm not 100% happy with my schedule (I really hate my rink's schedule which forces me to skate three days in a row and have four days off), but it works well enough. For me, it's really important that I have a lot of recovery time after my long run day and that I don't run at all on my lesson days.

Are you fueling your added activity?

Not eating enough or the wrong stuff can leave you drained and instead of gaining you lose fitness and muscle.

Ditto this as well. And make sure you are stretching--I find running tightens my leg muscles and if I don't stretch every single day I have trouble with any skating move that requires leg flexibility.

Also, something I haven't tried that you may want to look into are ice baths. I know a lot of people swear by them to quicken recovery times after long runs, so if you need to run and skate on the same day and nothing else works, you could see if it helps you.

[jjane45]

I am training for my first marathon (so excited!) and I run 5 days a week, starting out at 30 minutes and working up. However, I noticed in my most recent lesson that since I have started training for my marathon, I have no expendable energy for skating. I am wobbly, my muscles are shaky, and I am quickly out of breath...and I thought I was a fairly fit person! I skate two-three times a week, and I am trying to figure out how to best manage running and skating. Does anyone have any advice on this matter, or perhaps has experience? Thank you for your help :-)

How is your training nowadays? Are you feeling better?

[Landing~Lutzes]

How is your training nowadays? Are you feeling better?

Just thought I'd throw in an update! I've found that my fatigue was from a combination of over-training and nutrition. I've dropped down to running 3-4 days a week, varying in length/intensity, with a couple of cross-training workouts and have upped my carb and protein intake. It has helped me immensely! Who would have though eating MORE and exercising LESS would actually be BENEFICIAL? Lol! ;-)

[jjane45]

Well, less is more! 

[discombobulate]

how did your marathon go?
How long was it before you skated after?