Alright, so after nearly half a year of lackadaisical, directionless training, I finally got to the point where I'd had enough. I reached this point a week before the Brooklyn Half Marathon and decided that the week leading up to the Brooklyn Half would be the last one in which I consumed alcohol, at least for the foreseeable future.
As you might know, this isn't the first time I've decided to cut booze out of my life for training purposes. In fact, the very first time I did it was just about five years ago, which is really hard to believe. I did it then for the New York City Marathon in both 2009 and 2010. In 2011, I signed up for my first Ironman and resolved not to drink for the entire year prior.
This time, I'm not sure what the time period is going to be. So far, it's been about three weeks and it hasn't been difficult. The thing I miss most is trying different kinds of beer. Now that I've spent a few weeks resetting my alcohol consumption, I'm trying to decide if I won't keep teetotaling for another month or two before relaxing my rules a bit, or if I'll continue on with total prohibition. This has yet to be decided.
Additionally, Amortya and I are making efforts to train harder and smarter. Our weekend runs have been long (18 miles two weeks ago, 15 miles on Sunday) considering the only marathon for which we've signed up is NYC, which is a full 7 months from now. We've also added speed sessions during the week, which have so far consisted of mile and 2-mile repeats. This week, I also had my own treadmill session in which I ran 5 half mile repeats at a 7:03min/mile pace.
The ultimate goal, and one I've been talking about for over a year, is eventually qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I consider this early stage to be more of a base building stage and I think we're off to a good start.
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