Still rolling along

2 and 3/4 weeks in to the training plan and still going strong. We are still doing a run/walk method in these early stages of training and from the reading I've been doing this is a good way for us to go. Right now we run 3 minutes and walk 3 minutes for 5 cycles. The idea is we decrease the amount of time walking over the coming weeks until we can run 30 minutes without walking. It's a little hard to imagine that right now but that's still several weeks away.

We had a good family friend join our little group today. Elizabeth has decided to train with us and says she wants to run the Seattle R&R with us in June. She's a little more speedy than Lisa and me so she ran with Nate but we're glad to have her with us.

Our local trail that we have been running on got flooded when the Snohomish River went over its banks earlier this week. So we had to run on the Centennial Trail in Snohomish on Tuesday but we were able to get back on the river trail today although there are still some pretty wet places we had to deal with. Personally I prefer the Centennial trail, it's wider, nicer, smoother and doesn't feel as claustrophobic to me. It's also considerably longer than the river trail. I imagine in a couple weeks our distance will have increased to the point where we will outgrow the river trail but for now it's nice and close to home and works for us.

Training

Week 1 is in books and we are now half way through week 2. The sessions this week consist of alternating walking for 4 minutes with running for 2 minutes for 5 cycles. Its been a bit harder than I thought it would.

One thing that I have found interesting is that when I started running consistently back in the spring I was able to reach some milestones, like runninng a mile non stop, increasing my distance consistently etc... I was getting into pretty good shape, my weight was coming down and I felt good. But in the few months that I wasn't running I have lost all that. I am essentially starting over. In a way it's frustrating but I have to keep reminding myself that in the spring it took time to get where I was. I want the good feelings I had then now but I want them right now not later. It will come, I know it will. I just need to keep doing the work. I feel better when I'm excersing and I,m really enjoying doing it with my wife and son. It has made staying consistent a lot easier.

Nothing all that exciting to report yet but there will be....

Now I've gone and done it...

It's been a while since I've posted anything and although not much has changed there are somethings I thought I'd throw out here.

Recently my wife and me and our youngest son Nate started a 26 week running program. We finished week 1 today. For me and Lisa we started it as a way to get into shape and shed a few unwanted pounds. For Nate it's the desire to continue exercising since football ended and to get his knee back in shape after a football injury took him out for the season.

I'd been pretty diligent in my running last spring and was seeing definite benefits. Then decided to stop running during the summer because of all the other things I was doing, pioneer trek, cycling northern Idaho for a week, etc... Summer ended and so did my employment and consequently so did my running...

Now that I have my work schedule working for me and have some of my family joining with me on this quest to get into shape and lose the pounds I am back to consistently getting out and moving. I found a training plan that lasts 26 weeks and consists of four workouts during the week. The plan is designed as a training plan to run a marathon. So my thought was if the plan is designed to train for a marathon why not sign up for one? And so I did. I am now officially registered for the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon . Lisa and Nate are "keeping their options open" at this point. That means they aren't signed up yet but are leaning that way depending on how the training is going. Funny story about that. Today as we were coming home from the trail we have been working out on we were talking about the marathon and the distance and all that. I mentioned something about 26 miles and Nate pipes up from the back seat and says Wait, what's 26 miles? I said a marathon is 26.2 miles. He said it is? I thought it was 8!! I still hope he'll do it with me. Lisa wants to get a little further into the training before she fully commits but I'm hoping she'll do it too.

One of the sites I was looking at before I made this decision said to ask yourself "why do I want to do this?" So I thought about it and here is what I came up with:

1) I want to get myself into the best shape I've ever been in and I think the training for an event of this type would be the perfect medium. When I started running last April (2010) I noticed great results in a very short time so I know this is something I can do and I want to do it at the level a marathon would require.


2) After trek I know I can do hard things and survive them and be stronger for having done them. A marathon by my way of thinking  is a "hard thing" and I think I can get myself prepared to do it. I am not worried about a BQ time but just finishing it in around 4 hours.

3) I want to be able to say that at my age I have done it.

BQ is Boston Qualifying time. Many marathons around the country are Boston Qualifiers and Seattle R&R happens to be one of them. The qualifying time for someone my age is 3 hours 30 minutes. My goal is under 4 hours but I'm not sure I can get that far under. We'll see...
 
I still think I may run some shorter races this spring and summer just to see how I am doing and to get a feel for a race environment. I'll post more about that as I get closer to a decision and actually picking a race.
 
So since I am back to consistently training I am going to be more diligent at recording my progress in this blog. Not sure if I'll post more than once a week but at least I'll get something up here every week.
 
Wish me luck. I think I'm gonna need it....