I know I can…I’ve done it before. Today, I feel like I’ve never done it.

Today was my very first day of training. It wasn’t good.

I created a route that will serve me best during my maintenance runs. This is an “out and back” course that goes from my house, to Bally Total Fitness and then back home. Check it out…

I chose this particular route because once I get to the gym, I can take care of some of my strength training workouts. Today was abs, chest and shoulders.

So here is how the workout started…I got home from work today around 6:00pm, and I was tired enough to take a little cat nap. I woke up at 7:30pm and got ready for my run. I was fine during my first mile (12 min–5-6 minutes faster than I was anticipating), but as I got closer to the gym, I started feeling extremely nauseous. I started asking myself some insane questions: “Why am I doing this?” “What am I thinking?” “How will I ever run another marathon if I can’t get through the first couple miles?”

Now, as I write this, I am pretty upset at how my first day of training went. Getting sick on the day that I have designated as “MY day”, is a horrible feeling. I’m sure that I will recover from this horrible workout and this horrible feeling. It will all be worthwhile…I hope.

Tomorrow is a cross-training workout. I plan on using the Elliptical Trainer. Hopefully I have a better day.

–D

Monday, August 27, 2007 marks the beginning of my upcoming marathon training. It is only a matter of days before I start waking up at the crack of dawn, eating strange food, drinking strange liquids and icing my legs.

I’m using my own training plan (for right now). It’s a hybrid of the Active Training program and the Jeff Galloway method that I used last year.

Last week, I received a letter from the AIDS Marathon folks asking if I would like to come back to the program to train for the LA Marathon. Training begins on September 8th with these guys. I’m thinking about signing up, but I would have to alter the training program slightly so that it would accomodate the Arizona Marathon.

If I actually go through with this, I would be running two marathons in a matter of months. Arizona in January and LA in March. What is bad about this is that I want to run the San Diego Marathon as well, but I think that may have to take a backseat this year.

In any case, on Monday, I will start by running a nice, easy 30 minute training run. Each week, I will have 2-3 training runs on weekdays, 2 “regular” workouts at the gym that don’t involve running, and one long run each Saturday. The long runs will begin at 3 miles and will gradually increase. Once I get into the higher mileages, I will break up the long runs (12+miles) with shorter recovery runs (8 miles).

I’ll write more on Monday about my first training run.

–D

On August 27th, 2007, I will begin my training for the Arizona Rock N’ Roll Marathon. Even though this is not my first marathon, I thought that it would be wise to document the whole process, from start to finish. No, seriously…I’ve done this before…and I have proof.

I’m thinking of keeping myself purely vegetarian (with the exception of eggs) and trying to limit my consumption of fast food and sodas. I’m hoping that water becomes my beverage of choice. I’m also not going to drink alcohol.

The marathon is on January 13, 2008…this gives me 20 weeks to get myself in shape. I apologize in advance if my blog posts become increasingly negative. Leave a comment or two to keep me motivated.

See you on the road…