Monday, June 29, 2009

Base Miles Week Begins

After much consideration and some advice from Jeremy, I decided to go with the NYRR's Basic Marathon plan (it's the third one down). It's definitely going to be a challenge, but I think I'm up to it. I plan on getting up early tomorrow morning to go to the gym. If I succeed, it will be only the second time since I've lived in NYC. This is base miles week. So 4, 4, 4, 10, 3 for a grand total of 25 miles.

On Saturday I ran the Pride Run. It was 5 miles. I definitely wasn't feeling it when I woke up after a decently boozy evening. I managed a sub 10 minute mile, but barely. One of my long-term goals is to start running at a respectable pace (sub 9 minutes).

Monday, June 22, 2009

Questions Existing?

Okay, fine. All that jaw about trying to post every day for motivation and it's been 10 days since I last posted. I'm going to have to try a little harder.

Updates: The Tavis won the New York Urban Professionals championship, so congrats to all. I purchased a bathing suit and am going to need to figure out how my marathon and triathlon training programs are going to coexist peacefully.

Speaking of the marathon training program, I'm starting to wonder if I actually do want to use Hal Higdon's. There's no question that it would work just fine. As it is, the first time I did it I could have taken it a lot more seriously. So on one hand I think I would probably improve just by keeping the program and being more diligent about following it. On the other hand, I'm two weeks from my official start date and floundering. You'd think it'd be simple and I could just sort of run or borrow a couple of weeks from another program. The problem is that it's getting easier and easier for me to just skip days and justify it by thinking that I'm going to have 18 weeks of severely reduced social life, so I might as well take advantage. Now, does that make sense? Should I be taking the time or am I a slacker who's making excuses?

So one of my solutions for this is to find an alternate 20 week program that would occupy me longer. The problem is that it's a lot more in the way of mileage and also more sophisticated in terms of varying the type of running it calls for. It involves fartleks (I'll be honest, I had to look up what that was approximately 10 seconds prior to typing it), sprints, and hills. I don't know if I'm ready for all that. I also wonder if there doesn't exist a program that is somewhere in between these two. Probably so, I just need to find it. Any suggestions?

Friday, June 12, 2009

Revelations

Blogging is going to take more work than I expected. Not that it's really work per se, but it's going to require constant supervision. Like a child....only not. Today (aka at 12:30am) I really wanted to just go to bed and do it later, which is how I feel about pretty much everything. But then I realized that I'm not even in Marathog mode - I'm still in PRE-Marathog mode. If I already feel like not blogging now, it's only going downhill from here. Besides, part of the point of the Marathog was to hold me accountable for my training program. If I say something's on the agenda, I damn well better do it. So here I am. Blogging.

As for today's agenda, I'd consider the day a victory. Actually multiple victories. I finished the Corporate Challenge in 33 minutes, which is an average of 9.26/mile. For SlowPoke, that is a great time. And we won our basketball game! This means the Riki Tiki Tavis will play in the championship next week!

Tomorrow's Agenda: 40 minute tempo run. Maybe at the Y, maybe at the park.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

A few more things...


I've come to an important decision about this marathon. I hereby declare that I will not consume alcohol between July 6 and November 1, 2009. That is the entire duration of my training program. I will go boozeless for 18 weeks, no exceptions. This will be difficult, no doubt. But I figure there are worse times in the year for it to happen. The only occasion for which I might really miss drinking is my birthday. At least it doesn't encompass New Year's Eve.

In other news, my new bike was delivered today. It required more assembly than I anticipated. I also discovered that a normal ball pump does not work on bike tires. Go figure.

On the triathlon front, the Pancake, which I had hoped would be my first triathlon, is on the very same day as the Front Runner's New York Lesbian and Gay Pride Run. If it hadn't been for the fact that I already coughed up $17 to run the race and the triathlon itself costs $85, I would have done the triathlon. To my relief, NYRR has its own triathlon . Can someone remind me to register on June 15th?

Tomorrow's Agenda: Corporate Challenge (3.5M) and 1st playoff game for Basketball. Go Tavis!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

QTMBAIAGC

The Marathog officially starts on July 6, 2009. So I guess this is Pre-Marathog. How should I do this? I know, an FAQ section. Everyone loves those. The only problem? No one has actually asked any questions, frequently or otherwise. It is therefore my great pleasure to present to you:

QTMBAIAGC - Questions That Might Be Asked if Anyone Gave a Crap

Q. What is this blog all about?

A. I plan on running the ING New York City Marathon on November 1st, 2009 and thought it would be entertaining to chronicle my misadventures.

Q. Who came up with the crappy name?

A. That would be me.

Q. Is there a game plan? Or are you just going to show up at the start line on November 1 and hope you don't die?

A. An excellent question. I will be utilizing Hal Higdon's Novice 2 training program. It worked pretty well the first time around.

Q. Are you both posing and answering these questions? If so, why?

A. Yes. I have little else to do with my time.