Training Schedule Released

http://www.runDFMC.org/2010/jasonb

Basically, starting next Monday, 12/14, its on. The training schedule has been posted online by Dana Farber and it indicates a start date of 12/14. This ambition to run the Marathon officially turns into a concrete goal to work towards once I begin. There are two schedules that are offered; one for beginners and one for intermediate/advanced. The intermediate/advanced is intended for runners who have run at least one marathon before. Unfortunately, the beginners schedule, I think, won't be aggressive enough for me to achieve my time goal of 3:42 (a sub 8:30 mile). My hope is to overshoot rather than undershoot, so I plan to utilize the intermediate/advanced. There is the option to customize my own hybrid version of the two, but I'm up for the challenge of trying to keep up with the second one.

In other news, I ran my longest run since the half marathon yesterday. It was a 7.5-mile loop starting and ending at my condo. This was just the kind of run I needed after a business trip to Atlanta that didn't allow for any runs. Additionally, that run gave me a taste of the Winter training to come. The weather was cold (just above freezing) and raining. For days like that, I'm particularly grateful for decent running gear, particularly a good running hat. From what most literature states, the week's longer runs usually are concerned with distance more than time, but I always want to at least push past my comfort zone a bit. For me, that's around an 8:30 mile. So that's what I hit. See the data below. I think I'll start wearing the heart rate monitor for my longer runs at least just so I can track how I'm doing, from a cardiovascular standpoint, over the next 4 months.

Thanks for checking in!

My Splits
My Running Chart