Trail Note: 24 Weeks to Go

This week marks the first "official" week of marathon training. My current plan is to run the Royal Victoria Marathon on October 9th with a goal of completing under the Boston qualifying time of 3:40. I've said it; now I really need to do it. (By the way, if anyone knows anything about the Victoria Marathon, please let me know; I haven't registered yet, and I could still do Portland).

I have the mileage training plan. I'm using the book Advanced Marathoning, based off of a lot of recommendations I saw posted on a Runners' World bulletin board. This plan begins with 30 miles a week and ramps up to 55. I think I can count on one hand the number of weeks that I've run over 30 miles, and that would include the two weeks in which I ran marathons. So, that will be a challenge. I don't think that I'll get in all the mileage, but if I even come close, I'll be doing great.

The other thing, the harder thing for me, is watching my diet and losing some weight. 10 - 20 extra pounds really makes a difference if one is hauling it around for that many miles, so to save my knees and quicken my steps, I need to get serious about this. Any day now.

Anyway, I ran 9 miles on Sunday. I woke up feeling tired and moody with legs that did not feel fresh, despite the fact that I took two days off from running (one of those days I walked a lot, including up and down my hill twice). But my schedule said to run 9 miles, so run 9 miles I did. (This makes it sound as if I'm one of those people who always follows through on her idealistic self-improvement plans. Ha!) Once I got going it wasn't so bad. I deliberately tried to keep the pace slow, and I ran the Burke Gillman trail, rather than any number of hillier routes that I could have done. I timed 2 miles near the end of the run, and they were both at or just under an 8:40 pace, so I did make pretty good time. It's just about putting one foot in front of the other, I have to keep telling myself, and get those miles in.