New Year, New Blog

I've never done a blog before, but thought it might help me stick to my training plan, so I'll try it. We'll see how it goes.

The plan for this year is to run the Virginia Beach Marathon in March, and hopefully qualify for the Boston Marathon (which I would run in 2013). I need a 3:40, and my fastest marathon was 3:49 at Tampa in February of 2010. I feel a 3:40 is doable, though, because I have been running faster lately. It will take a good race day and a pace group, and I should be able to accomplish it.

I also want to do another half ironman triathlon this year, which I would have to get done by July because of my work schedule. I don't have one picked out yet, and I'll need to get a few shorter ones in, too. The goal for triathlons is to do a full Ironman in the fall of 2013. Yikes!

The other purpose of this blog is to record my experiences running with my canine partner Fredo the Wonderdog. We don't know how old Fredo is, but he is at least 8 years old, maybe 9. He has been my running companion for the past couple of years and he gets such joy out of it. When I'm having a bad run, I at least look down at him and see how happy he is and it gets me through. But I don't know how much longer he'll be able to run with me. I can't imagine running without him, but I of course know that he can't keep running forever.

So my first training entry will be about this morning's run. My marathon schedule calls for 16 miles yesterday, but I have not worked up to that. In fact, the longest I've run lately is 10.5, and I have not kept up with my week day runs over the past couple of weeks. And I did not run at all yesterday...so this morning the plan was to run 6 miles, and log a long run of 12 miles tomorrow. Then hopefully I can get back on schedule.

I slept in a little bit today, which sometimes would cause me to skip my run, but I am really going to try to get all my planned runs in this year. The weather was beautiful--about 60 degrees with a light breeze, not a cloud in the sky. As we started I felt great, and remembered why I love running. Fredo of course was raring to go. Before 1 mile, however, my body started to yell at me for skipping runs lately, and it became a bit of a struggle for the remainder of the run. My legs felt okay, but I have a stiff neck/shoulder problem that has been plaguing me for weeks, and I felt a little bogged down. I did a route that I haven't done in a long time, so when I reached a point that I thought was almost 5 miles I looked at my watch...NOPE! Only 3.47...argghhh...this is why I do not look at my watch often, because I started thinking about how much farther I had to go and how 6 miles seemed to be taking FOREVER! But then I caught myself thinking negatively and started thinking about the route, breaking it up into pieces that I knew I could accomplish. I tried picking up my turnover to try to run a little faster, which would work for a little bit.

As we got back to my neighborhood I checked the watch one more time and figured out what I needed to do for the end of the run, and came in at 6.15 miles. Pace was 8:47 per mile, which nowadays is on goal for me. On "easy" run days I want to be under 9 minute miles, and when I feel crappy like I did today it's a bonus to come in under that.

So day 1 of 2012 accomplished, Fredo was happy, I'm feeling good, and I'm ready to conquer the year.