Bill's 20/20 Lifestyle Program

Well, I finished my second week of marathon training, even with Christmas during the week. I did three 3-milers during the week. Then this weekend, I planned to do a 7-miler on Saturday, but had to cut it short because I needed to get home to take Nathan to guitar practice. Instead of the planned 7 mile run, I did a 3.5 mile run. To get things back on track, I ran my 7-miler today. This was 3.5 miles more than I should have run this week, but it's more important that get in my long runs than I slowly put on mileage. Also, since I had been doing 20 mile weeks recently, I felt that it wouldn't be a problem to run 4.5 miles more than the previous week.

My pace is still slow, about 10:15 per mile. I put some extra weight on over the holidays, so that is probably part of it. I am also not too concerned about speed, so the fact that I'm running slow is not critical, as long as I can run long.

Next week I back off on my long run (only 5 miles), but add a mile to my mid-week run. I will do 3, 4, 3, and 5 for a total of 15 miles. This is part of the Hal Higdon program: 2 weeks of increasing mileage followed by a back off week. Following next week's back off week, I will do 19 miles, including a 9 mile long run.

I'm pretty pleased with how things are going so far. I just home I can keep it up!