Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I'm Actually Getting Excited About This!

Yesterday my sister sent me a link to photos of people finishing the Detroit marathon. How cool! There was one particular one of a first-time marathoner stepping over the finish line with her arms in the air and the look on her face was priceless! She wasn't a 25-yr-old ultra-skinny career runner. She was an average 45-yr-old woman. There seemed to be a lot of us 'regular people' in the marathon. I can't wait!! I can DO this!

This is a unique marathon and has plenty along the way to keep the runners (and spectators) amused. There is some form of live music almost every mile along the way. It passes through Corktown - the oldest surviving neighborhood in downtown Detroit (believe me, that's saying something). One leg of the journey is the 'underwater mile' where we will run through the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel and into Canada. The return trip into the USA will be via the Ambassador Bridge. There is a quick spin through Belle Isle (a park on its own small island in the Detroit River) and a jog past the old Tiger Stadium.

I printed up my training calendar yesterday. I purposely started pre-training a couple months early because I've been such a couch potato this winter. The date I actually would have HAD to start pre-training is April 13th in order to start real training on June 29th and be fully prepared for the marathon in October. I will continue in pre-training since I have already started. Once I hit the last scheduled week of it, I will just increase my jogging time a tiny bit every week until marathon training begins. I feel good that I'm a little ahead of schedule because now I don't have to sweat it too much on these ridiculously cold and icy days.

Anybody else out there thinking about trying a marathon (or even a half marathon)? Come on! You can do it, too? It's only 26.2 miles and one way or another it'll all be over in 6.5 hours.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

I Did It!

I was in Chicago from Wednesday through Saturday and I got all of my walking in....and then some. We didn't even get the car out of the lot the whole time. It was so cold that walking fast was a necessity! I never used the escalator or elevator when I had a choice (except in the hotel itself because the stairs were kind of creepy).

Now I am ready for next week's new walk/run schedule, while I'll post either tomorrow morning or this evening should I have a moment.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Scheduling - The Preemptive Strike

Having a budget keeps one from losing financial control. Having a daily training schedule will keep pathetic runners from having a disastrous training week like I did last week. So here's the deal:

Tuesday 7:30 am 1st run/walk of the week.
Wednesday 7:30 am 2nd training session
Thursday 8:30 treadmill and weight training
Friday 8:30 final weekly walk

I have to spell this out now or it won't happen. This week I am not walking on Monday (today) as it is currently two degrees BELOW zero with a wind chill of -17. I would like to keep all my fingers and toes intact so I'm not budging.

The fam and I will be in Chicago the latter half of the week so I have planned to use the exercise room in the hotel for those days.

Last week was disastrous because I didn't plan ahead. So.....every Monday I will post what the schedule is for that week and then please beat me over the head if I don't stick to it!!!!

Pardon me for taking so long to get my act together here. Then again, I suppose that is what this blog is for; helping me figure out how to do this right and then hopefully helping other people avoid any stupid mistakes I was not smart enough to get around.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I Am Responsible for my own Training

When it comes down to it, I am the only one responsible for my training. I didn't go out and walk/run Monday or Tuesday. I waited for Jim to get home so we could go together. Both nights he ended up getting here too late and too weary to do the training, which I completely understand. I, however, should have seen that as a real possibility and gone ahead and trained when it was light out without him. Then if he came home wanting to train....I could have gotten extra exercise.

So............from this day forward, I train like I am in this by myself. If I happen to have company later in the day, I'll go twice. I can't risk missing days and I don't want to run without him in the dark. If I'm going to do this thing (and I am) I have to be 100%, no-excuses, walk-through-the-pain committed to it.

I have scheduled a walk with a friend this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes. When I went out to scrape everyone's cars off this morning (aren't I wonderful?), there were two inches of slush soup on part of our driveway. The roads didn't seem bad, though, and I have no excuses for remaining on my keister today.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Preliminary Training Program - Week 2

According to the book, this week I should be out walking 4 days, 30 minutes per day, at the same pace as last week (17-20 min mile). I'm walking at a little bit better clip than that, which will make next week a bit easier.

It looks like I will be entering the world of marital marathoning. Jim has decided to join me in my madness. We shall see if time permits. Last time he ran into hip problems but that was probably due to skipping through portions of the preliminary training..tsk, tsk..and his skeletal system just wasn't properly readied for the task. He didn't do Week One with me this time, but when he was in Chicago last week, he did a bit of walking around town. Now we just have to find a good time to do this every day.

Lest I get cushy, there is a fresh dusting of snow on the ground to slog through, it's 38 degrees, and there is an 80% chance of freezing drizzle. Oh goody, optimum training weather! I would zip out and go now before the heavens burst forth, but I have to start school with the girls soon and there is no one here to watch Carrie anyway. I'll get out there later. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night....

If you're having trouble sticking to any kind of exercise program, you might consider getting a copy of the book listed to the right, and jump in to train. There is something about exercise with a specific, large, seemingly unattainable goal attached that kind of keeps you going. Once you flap your gums about it to someone else, then you actually have to follow through with it. This is a GOOD thing (really).

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Third Training Day of Week 1

As lame as it may seem to anyone out there who is in any kind of shape at all, today was an accomplishment for me. I actually finished this week's training. Three days, 30 minutes, 17 min/mi pace.

I actually learned something this morning, too. Never run in cold weather without Kleenex. You aren't the only thing running.

Today was good. Though I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed it, I was able to push myself and get back 4.5 minutes earlier than usual. It felt good to push ahead of my required pace.

As a side note, just so everyone knows, I don't care about pace once it gets to the marathon. My goal is to finish....running, walking, or crawling....unfortunately I think the third option is probably more likely. I was at the marathon website the other day and I started panicking a little. This is a pretty cool marathon. It crosses the border with Canada twice, you run underneath the Detroit River, take a spin on Belle Isle, etc. Unfortunately, if you don't reach the first border crossing by a certain time, they come and pick you up and your race is over. I can just see it now. "okay, let's go pick up all the marathoner-wanna-be-losers" that just wasted their registration fees. I mean, come on......I'm sure no one who starts the marathon thinks they're going to be one of the 'picked-up-ones'. Oh, well. There are certainly worse things in life.

Week One training: Complete!