18 and counting

8:30 AM - 6 miles, 45:15 - Industrial Park.
Roads were a sloppy mess but not nearly as bad as I anticipated.

7:10 PM - 4 miles, 30:00 - AHS.
Back-n-forth on a ~150-meter carpeted stretch of the second and third floor hallways at the high school. 6 x 20 second strides during the last 10 minutes to mask the monotony.

I had these grandiose plans of summarizing my summer/fall of racing and training in this entry but it's amazing how fast my motivation waned over the course of 12 hours today. Lots of non-running related life stuff to take care of on my day off from work, but better to worry about those things now than on a Monday in April.

Like the one that happens to fall exactly 18 weeks from today.

That's right, 18 weeks. Let the countdown to Boston begin.

That leaves me 126 or so days to get myself in the most rip-roaring, run-till-I-drop, kickass shape I've ever been in for a long distance race. I'll need to stay healthy and train consistently to get to there, and if I'm able to do that I'm confident I can bust out a big one on Patriots Day.

As far as training goes, the general idea will be to get my mileage back up over the next 6 weeks and follow that up with 10 weeks of specific marathon prep and a two-week taper. I have a handful of races penciled in, including the Frostbite 15K, Paddy Kelly 5-miler, Stu's 30K and the New Bedford 1/2 Marathon. That list will likely change and be amended accordingly depending on how things progress over the next few months.

There will be pretty good-sized group of local studs and studdesses hoping to make a big splash on April 21 and I'm really looking forward to pounding the pavement with some of these fast folks as we prepare for Patriots Day. If you're not part of this crew, it's OK - just give us a good shout on Marathon Monday.

Quote of the Day

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
- T.S. Eliot (swiped from Casey)