Six months from today - October 7th - I’ll be running the Chicago Marathon with a team of 15 people to raise money and awareness for Scleroderma research. (Read more about that here.) It might sound like there is plenty of time to train, but being 6 months away from the big day means I need to start getting serious about the training and hitting my goals. After all, it doesn’t happen in a day, it happens daily. So, each day I need to focus on that day’s workout in order to hit the long term goals.

Chicago Marathon Goal - Run it under 4 hours 30 minutes.

This will be my third time running Chicago. The first time, I had no idea what the heck I was doing and ran it over 5 hours. I didn’t really train properly. Before arriving at the starting line, the longest I had ever run in my life was 14 miles - twice. It was ambitiously crazy to attempt 26.2 miles with that amount of training, but I did it.

The second time, I was a little more seasoned but still didn’t follow any kind of training program. I did have one 20-mile training run prior to the big day but it went poorly. Because my body was more accustomed to running and my mind knew what to expect, I managed to runthis one just under 5 hours - besting my first time by more than 25 minutes.

Now, the third time is the charm. I’ll be shooting for a 4-hour marathon, and will be happy to come in at any time under 4.30. This time too, I plan to be more structured with my training and preparation. Starting in July, I’ll follow a 12-week training plan through Aaptiv. Prior to that I’m working on ramping up my average mile speed and loosing some weight to be a more economical runner.

All of this requires clocking a lot of miles - aka a lot of time on the treadmill. Now that Johnson Fitness & Wellness has set me up with the Matrix TF30 with the XER console, getting in the miles has never been easier! (Read the post about why I picked this machine over the other possibilities.) I alternate between using the machine’s Sprint8 program and doing my own tempo-focused runs. In addition I’m mixing in some strength training and dynamic stretching to make sure my muscles have the chance to recover quickly and effectively.

The Sprint8 program is my latest obsession! I love it for its simplicity and effectiveness. You hop on the treadmill, pick your fitness level and then go for it. The 20-minute workout, including the warm-up and cool-down, is a combination of 8 30-second sprints interspersed with 90-second recovery periods. The idea is that you go HAM on each and every sprint and then take the rest periods to allow your heart rate to recover. The program is designed to be an efficient, fat-burning HIIT workout that gives you a complete cardio exercise experience.

The fact that it is 20 minutes and you really feel like you’ve worked out when you reach the end, has me loving the program. Add to that, the fact that it is scientifically proven that programs like this lead to healthier bodies, weight loss and a decrease in BMI, and I’m sold. For me, when I don’t have time for a long workout, I hop on the treadmill and do this. Quick, easy, done in 20 minutes.