Playing Catch UP

Key thing to training for a marathon is to stick to the training plan. Unless you have a serious injury, there are very few excuses to miss out on a run.  Due to a crazy work week, which included working from 8:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. the next morning on a film shoot, I immediately fell behind on the first week of training. Years before I would have just let the training go, and tell myself that it's no big deal. But this time is different. That's in large part to my goal of running a 1:45 half marathon and having Wendy as my running partner. She's not one to let things get in the way of her runs.  As a matter of fact, not much gets in her way. This is the same woman who ran the Boston Marathon in 3:45 with a blood cot. And today while I handled some errands including getting a new car battery, taking Wendy's car for a smog check and going on a walk with Beans, Wendy cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the apartment. Once she was done, she hoped right onto the treadmill.  That's what they call dedication. No wonder she kicks my butt every time. But we'll get to that later. 

Wednesday's speed workout was a no go, so we picked things up on Thursday through Saturday. Each of those days called for 3 miles. It's not far, but sometimes when you're on the treadmill, it seems like an eternity. To help get through these past few runs on the mill, I threw in some variety. On Thursday I challenged myself by adding the speed every five minutes, eventually getting to a sub 9 minute mile. For Friday and Saturday, I went with the approach of starting fast at a 10 minute mile, then picking up the speedometer to a sub 8 minute mile. The main goal here was to maintain that sub 8 minute mile for the last mile and a half. Surprisingly I did and its step in the right direction. 

Week one comes to a close tomorrow. A five mile run awaits me at the finish. 

~jt