Tuesday, May 19, 2009

1st Post!

I am creating this blog to document the victories (and probable setbacks) on my quest to run the Grand Rapids Half Marathon in October '09 and eventual Full Marathon in '10, so hopefully this blog becomes something of a story!

To start off, I smoked cigarettes since I was 16 years old. (I am now 37). My wife and I started running to get in shape, but the goal has changed somewhat for myself. I have found it quite therapeutic to run in place of smoking! Being somewhat goal oriented, I have now signed up for the half marathon with the ultimate goal being a marathon. I have run numerous 5k's already and actually, the second 10k of the season is this Saturday at the Bayshore in Traverse City, Michigan. We had already ran the Cincinnati Flying Pig 10k earlier in the month. (time was 1:05; not great but something to work towards)

As I have a race this weekend, I am in a modified taper. I did run 3 miles yesterday in 26:15, which was my goal pace. I do have some soreness in my quads right now due to some weekend work, so am going to lay off running at all for a couple days. I might try an easy 3 mile run on Thursday to stay loose. I am hoping for a time under 1:00, although I hope I didn't jinx it by blogging it. I guess we will know on Saturday!

Like I mentioned, I hope to document this journey, which I would think will take at least a year, since the first goal is the half. I cant be ready for a full marathon by the end of the year with the half in October, so the Bayshore may be my full marathon initiation in '10!

Lastly, as a last edit to my post, I have linked my training program for the half that I start in July. For now, I am going to be running about 25 miles per week on average, depending on race schedules. (we have one 5-10k planned each month this summer) I will be using Hal Higdon's Intermediate training plan, which calls for gradual increases in distance. I have over 12 weeks to prepare for this, so this should ensure I dont end up with some kind of injury.

1 comment:

  1. As the to'ally awesome Tony Little says,
    "You Can Dooooo It!"

    Love ya!
    Corey

    ReplyDelete