Progress

I've made good progress on two fronts. I've now completed the third week of my training program on schedule and with a number of generous sponsorships in the past few days, I'm now approaching 50% of my fund raising goal. Thanks to everyone that has sponsored me thus far

The weather forecast looks pretty good for the next few days so outdoor running should be pleasant. I plan to run the 10 mile loop at Lady Bird Lake tomorrow morning. With the forecast temperatures in the 40s early with almost no wind, I really couldn't ask for better conditions.

Training through the holidays

It would be pretty easy to skip a day or two (or three) of training during the holidays. It would also be easy to pack on some extra pounds while simultaneously skipping training. I'm hoping to avoid both.

I did miss one day of training this week after our office Christmas dinner party (don't ask). However, I made up a few miles today and am now well into the training program. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold early, but then warming by mid-day, so I'll go for a seven-miler then. I'm sure most of the members of the Melanoma Foundation team would be laughing at my definition of "cold" but what can I say? I moved to Texas for a reason and sub-freezing temperatures wasn't one of them.

Happy Holidays!

Training program started

I'm going to use the same training program for the Boston Marathon as I did for the 2006 New York City Marathon. That program was a "personalized" program that I generated on a website offered by the New York Road Runners. The input form on the site asked for various items of information such as age, height, weight, etc. plus running experience, recent miles per week and marathon goal time to come up with an 19 week training schedule.

Starting in week five, this program calls for runs of varying distances six days per week up to a maximum of 42 miles per week in each of weeks 13, 14 and 17. I've set it up to have my "off" day on Saturday. This was week number 1. After a 10 mile run last Sunday (before the "official" start of the program), I put in 3, 5 and 5 miles Wednesday through Friday. Tomorrow, the schedule calls for six. I'll probably stretch the program a bit in that for at least most of the Sunday "long" runs, I'll go for 10 even if the requirement is for something less.

Is this December?

When I left for my run at the Lady Bird Lake Trail this morning, the temperature was about 70 degrees with 90% humidity! How can the humidity get to 90% anyway? Any runner will tell you that cool temps and low humidity are preferred, but if one of them has to give, higher temperatures are preferred. There is nothing that makes running tougher than high humidity and, sure enough, I struggled to finish the 10-mile loop around the lake this morning. April weather in Boston can be just about anything. I'm just hoping for "dry" weather on April 21.

On another subject, Trish at the Melanoma Foundation sent out invitations to our team's Yahoo Group last week and a few people have joined and posted introductions. I'm hoping to "meet" more of the team in the coming weeks and am looking forward to swapping thrilling tales from the pavement.

Boston Marathon facts

• The first Boston Marathon was run on April 19, 1897.
• The race was held on April 19, Patriots Day, every year from 1897 through 1968 except when the 19th fell on a Sunday in which case the race was held on Monday the 20th.
• In 1969, the Patriots Day holiday was officially moved to the third Monday in April.
• The race distance was 24.5 miles from 1897 through 1926. In 1927, the race was lengthened to the Olympic distance of 26 miles, 385 yards.
• The first "official" woman entrant was accepted for the 1972 race. Women had run on an unofficial "bandit" basis several times previously.

Source: http://www.bostonmarathon.org/BostonMarathon/History.asp

Weather surprise

After writing about how much better it is to run in cold (or at least cool) weather, the central Texas weather threw me a curve ball. It was a bit warmer on Friday than Wednesday which made for some very nice running weather. That, however, was nothing like it was when I headed downtown to the Lady Bird Lake Trail this morning at 6:15 a.m. - it was close to 70 degrees, which isn't that bad by itself, but the humidity was also north of 80 percent. That makes for some difficult running. I forced myself to finish the entire 10 mile loop of the trail, but it was not exactly fun. The operative word was "perspiration" and plenty of it.

The forecast calls for more seasonable (cooler) weather moving in to start the week, but next Sunday looks like it might be a rerun of today. This is, of course, subject to change.