Let the Training Begin!

Monday January 18th 2010 marks the start of my Fargo Marathon training!

The Fargo Marathon is on May 22, 2010. This is a bittersweet moment for me as I have found some things out about myself. It has been nice to be able to run when I want and as far as I want without any specific goal in mind other than racking up mileage and having some fun doing so. I find that I am really enjoying some of my longer runs which leads me to believe that I may try to fit in a 50K run sometime between marathons this year. But, I do look forward to having some discipline and structure to my workouts. It will be 18 weeks of running when and how far I am told to do so by Hal. Irregardless of how I feel about the training, I am excited to see if I can run a smarter race this time and finish in under 4 hours.

I chose the Fargo Marathon for two reasons, it's close, and it's flat. I have also selected a different training plan this time around. I am using Hal Higdon's Intermediate II plan. I think that the nice thing about Higdon's plan is that he explains how and why you are doing what he has you do every day.

It was an awesome feeling to complete my first marathon and I have no doubt that this one will be great too. An added bonus will be that my good friend and sometimes training partner Jenn is planning on running this marathon also. She is one tough chick. Her first marathon was in Philly, she ended up running and puking for 16 miles of it, but she didn't quit. I don't know how many people could pull off an accomplishment like that. She is now working on becoming an Ironman triathlete in the next few years. You can check out her blog here.

Let the training begin!!