Meet my new shoes

Just thought you might want to meet my new shoes. Well I would like to meet them too....they don't arrive till Tuesday....which means I can't use them till Wednesday.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1431564400/bclid1435496324/bctid1509297655

Note -- I got these for 30% off using a coupon code at Eastbay.com.

A Tester

All of my runs have gone well this week, but tomorrow is the test. It will be my first long run (15 miles) since my ankle started to bother me. If all goes well I will return to my full training plan on Monday, if not, I will return to my previously scheduled bad mood (just kidding....sort of).

In the meantime, I will be reading about the maximum daily dosages for Advil.

A Blip

After repeating on an almost daily basis "this is the best prepared I have ever been at this stage of marathon prep" the unthinkable occured.

An injury. Coming off vacation, I suddenly developed a severe pain in the top my foot/ankle which Dr. WorldWideWeb and I have diagnosed to be a tendon problem. I ran for a few days with clenched teeth but realized that was not going to be a long term strategy. So I shut it down for nearly a week and sat around the house being grumpy, eating everything in sight.

Thankfully, my first two days back on the road (slightly scaled down) have been encouraging. I experienced a little discomfort but was easily able to finish each run.

So with 67 days remaining till the Mississippi Blues Marathon, I would encourage each of you to buy stock in Advil because I am not giving up this easy (and my registration is non refundable.)

Marathon training

For my first two marathons I used Hal Higdon training schedules, http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00index.htm first the Intermediate I and then then I stepped up to the Intermediate II. I could not have run a marathon without these schedules building me up for the big race.

The one draw back to the schedules is they did not prescribe the pace to run. Even a few that did give me a pace to train at, never told me what pace to attempt on race day. (The result was a colossal meltdown on the second half of my first marathon. At the finish line my wife was certain I was about to die....I knew there was no way I was going to get off that easy!)

Experience gained that day made my second marathon a much better experience. However, I was still guessing about training paces and race pace.

But this year I discovered McMillan pace charts. http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/Running%20University/Article%201/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm They are fantastic! Punch in a recent race result and the site will give you a goal pace for every distance from 100 meters to marathon, including long runs, tempo runs and recovery runs.

A few weeks into my training and I have never felt so confident and prepared. If only I did not continue to read about how "challenging" the Mississippi Blues Marathon course is, I would almost guarantee a sub 4:00 result!

Oh well, at least the training will go well. After all that is more than half the fun.