One Day At A Time

So I have this goal: Run a marathon. I've been told that the Disney marathon is a great race for beginners. I've got my kids psyched into going to Mickey's house in January of next year. Other members of my extended family are planning on joining us in at Mickey's house and I'm already trying to sabotage my completing my goal of running a marathon. I'm thinking to myself that I really shouldn't do this; I can't do this; I wouldn't be able to do this--I should give up.

The funny thing is that I've put a race on my calendar, a 5K in December. I have a modified training schedule to actually run this race as a race and not plod through it. I'm accounting for 10% milage increases weekly with some plateau and taper time. I hope to have fresh legs. My plan that I outlined a couple of posts ago is a bit hopeful in that the milage increase is greater than 10% so I've modified it. Today I ran 2.5 instead of the orignal 3 that I'd planned on. Leaving my house, I thought, ok, let's take it nice and slow to stretch the legs because my legs feel heavy. So 1 mile in I look at my watch-9:07. How can this be, I'm a 10 minute miler. Then I start thinking that I will never be able to get back home because I went out too fast, I can't keep this pace up, but I said to myself, "self, you can ease off the pace, but you are not quitting in this short 2.5 miler, you can complete this, you don't have to walk." I eased up a little and did make it home. My time out and back for 2.5 miles was 23 min 22 seconds or a 9:21 pace. This is not bad! The funny thing is, when I went out I started talking to myself about cancelling my run tomorrow or rationalizing some way out of it, but now that I've completed my run and am sitting on the couch making this post, I'm thinking about my run tomorrow. What is on the calendar are 4-5 hill repeats, so I will jog to the hill, do some stretching and cycle through the 400-600 yd repeats and then jog back. It will be interesting to see if I can get through these. You'll have to wait until I get through it and make my post to find out how it goes.

This morning I did walk 2 miles with my wife so for the day, I've moved 4.5 miles. Also, I am now in the 270s. It is 279 but still, it's in the 270s. It is a nicer neighborhood than the 280s. Let's see what this running does!