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....
No comments:
Post a Comment