Week 2- Sept 21-27, 2008

Well I am knee deep in week two. This has been a rough week. Shin splints kept me on the elliptical machine Monday, Tuesday was weight day and last night was the first night that I have ran. I did a 5 minute warmup walk around the YMCA 1/6 mile indoor track, then 4 intervals of 1/3 mile run and 1/6 mile walk, then 1 lap cool down. After completing this I could barely walk from the shin splints, I decided to try stretching my calves to help with the pain and after 5 minutes of runners stretches the pain was completely gone! I am now a stretching believer. When I got home last night I put some ice on my shins for about 20 minutes and the when I woke this morning there was zero pain...first time in two weeks that I didn't hurt. Tonight is weight day so I will give the shins a day to rest, before hitting again on Friday. The program is really pretty easy right now and I am looking forward to 4 or 5 weeks down the road when I can continuously run for 3-4 miles. I guess I can't expect to sit around for 20 years and then think that I should be able to run like a kid after only a couple of weeks. I registered for the Tacoma City Marathon this morning so I can't chicken out now. Or at least if I do it will cost me $60. Early registration saves you $50 over the day of race registration so I figured that I might as well do it early. Until next time....

Week 1- Sept 14-20, 2008

The first week of my 26 week training program was pretty easy. 30 minutes on the treadmill; consisting of warm-up walk 5 minutes, run 1 minute/walk 2 minutes intervals then 3 minutes cool down. I did this f our time last week. I barely broke a sweat but the training program explicitly stated not to jump ahead even if I felt I could. Since my entire workout wardrobe consisted of cotton t-shirts and cotton socks, I made some purchases of several perfomance material shirts and some running socks. It's amazing what the right clothing can do for your comfort when working out. Next week it ramps up a little but is still very easy.

Why Marathon?

Sept 22, 2008- I am a slightly overweight 42 year old auto mechanic. I am very goal oriented and want to improve my health and give myself a positive goal to aspire to. Two and half years ago (2006) I decided to do the Columbia Tower stair climb in Seattle. It was 69 flights of stairs and I trained for it for 3 months, by the time I ran the event I had lost 40 lbs. And climbed in :12:38. After that until now I have been somewhat sedintary. I took up Bicycle riding for a couple of years and did the Chilly Hilly bike ride and the McClinchy Mile in 2007. But after a serious crash on my bike and several near misses with passing cars I put up the bike and did not continue with any fitness related activities until last week. I had gained back 30 lbs of the weight that I had lost and the first time that I saw 220 on the scale I decided to take up some sort of fitness related activity. Running looked promising because I have more control of where I train and do not have to be on the road with other vehicles. The rub here is that I haven't ran since high school and my Army days. I started with a good pair of shoes and with the help of Fleet Feet in Bonney Lake I was fitted with a pair Etonics. They took the time to video tape my gait and make sure I had shoes to make running as pain free as possible. I have decided to make the Tacoma Marathon my goal which happens in May 2009. I have 30 weeks to make the transition from the couch to the finish line. I am following the 10K training schedule (10 weeks) and the picking up the Marathon training schedule (16 weeks) I decided to BLOG it for the accountability that it will require. Even if nobody ever reads these posts I will have the expectations for myself to enter my daily/weekly experiences here. Follow me here and see if I can do it.