The Official Start of Training

The Boston Marathon will starting gun will be on April 19th - 16 weeks from yesterday. In training terms, this means the official start of training. For me, there are different ways to remember how close the marathon is - counting down the weeks, watching the total mileage hit the 500-550 miles run mark, 100-120 hours of cross-training. My body also has certain reminders, many of them not the most pleasant - calories consumed weekly, blister count, number of frozen water bottles or frozen Clif shots consumed, and my personal favorite...the number of lost/blackened toe-nails!

I will be posting a weekly summary of the training for the upcoming week and ask for comments to keep me going and to hold my feet to the fire when I am tempted to skip a workout. It is reasonably warm here in North Carolina where I'll be for a few more days but when I return to Boston my job is to be out in cold, wind and snow 3-4 times per week. You job is to give $5, $10, $25, $100 or raise some from your friends through dinner parties or other fun means and to kick my ass a little bit when I am getting slack.

Now, for this week's training schedule:

Dec. 28 - Sunday, January 3, 2010:

12/28: 2 mile warm-up run; interval repeats (8 x .1 mile at 6:30/mile pace); 2 mile cool down

12/29: weight lifting; core strength; massage

12/30: 10 mile run at 9:30/mile pace

12/31: cross-train, stretch, core strength workout

1/1: 6 mile tempo run 8:10/mile pace

1/2: cross-training

1/3: rest


I can already tell you that I did the 12/28 interval repeats too fast - 5:25/mile pace instead of 6:30. It was fun to go that fast but I can't let that happen again!!