Back On The Horse

So, I've decided to continue this blog. You're welcome, dear reader(s).

After taking it rather easy during 0 week (immediately following the marathon), I've hit the road again with the goal of running another marathon in the spring. Additionally, I'm determined to finish in under 3:20. This is an ambitious goal. And it will be extra hard for a person who is carrying around many extra pounds of fat. However, it'll keep me motivated.

0 week was surprisingly painless. There was tightness and soreness on Monday and Tuesday. Stairs were a struggle. By Thursday, I felt fine. I am fairly insensitive to aches and pains, so there was likely some low-level pain that I was ignoring. Still, by Friday, I was anxious to tie on the old jogging shoes to see how my legs held up. A light, 2-miler proved invigorating and rather painless.

The weekend saw a couple more light runs: 3 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. Nothing strenuous. No pain at all. This Hal Higdon guy sure seems to know what he's talking about.

I've now entered HH's Post-Marathon Recovery Guide Week 1. Having moved myself into the "Advanced" bracket, I will now be introducing speed work, including tempo runs and repeats. Thanks to Google maps, I have been able to mark off a nice 400m track right along the river. After a 1.1 mile warm-up jog from home to the river, I can stretch, run the repeats, then warm-down on the 1.1 mile jog back.

I may be jumping the gun a bit with the advanced training, but I've identified a real need for goal setting and would be rather bored with another similar 18 week program. The introduction of speedwork will make the whole routine more exciting and, hopefully, satiate any competitive drive I might develop.

In any case, today's run included the 1.1 warm-up jog, then 4 x 400m repeats along the river, each book ending a 3-5 minute slow jog or walk. A couple of young skateboarders and a police officer (parked in his car and intermittently napping and eating) watched me as I ran, then walked, then ran, then walked. I had not realized that my self-classification as an advanced runner would bring with it my first fans, but I was delighted to have them. I'm pretty sure the skateboarders snapped some iphone video footage of me and I will undoubtedly show up on youtube as "fat, running douche bag with orange-tinted sunglasses who runs in circles, narrowly missing a jig-lift crane. twice." Stay tuned for that.

I'm hoping to schedule a race for the end of week 4 of the post marathon program. And will definitely try to do a turkey trot like thing on Thanksgiving morning (in order to grant myself license to gorge later in the day - while watching "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" for the thirtieth time in 2 days and listening to Guaraldi's holiday record - and not feel bad about it).