So this is it – the big commitment. I’m going to run a marathon in 2013!
😯 😯 😯
I don’t exactly know which race yet, but it looks like I’ve got a couple of different options…
- 5K races in either September (Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10-Miler Weekend) or November (Wine & Dine Marathon Weekend)
- Half Marathon in November (Wine & Dine)
- or if I’m way ahead of schedule… – 10-mile marathon in September (Twilight Zone)
And I know that these are all just baby marathons in comparison to the big 26-mile monstrosity that WDW holds once a year in January, but A) clearly the one two months from now is way too soon for me to even consider, and B) I kinda figured that a shorter race would give me a chance to see if I even want to do something that long in the first place! They say that a good target pace to train for is a 15-minute mile, which would clock the full-scale marathon in at about 6.5 hours of running, and even the half marathon is half of that, so either way I think it’s safe to say that I’ve got a lot of work to do if I’m going to even attempt this without managing to kill myself in the process!
For right now, I think my target is to try and shoot for the half marathon in November, and then if I both survive and enjoy it, then I might move on to try the full marathon two months later as well.
I know that I’ve got a long ways to go, but I really think that I need something different to help motivate me – who knows, maybe this is it. I do know that I desperately need to pick up a new pair of shoes as soon as possible because my current walking shoes actually have missing rubber in a couple of places and after trying a small amount of random jogging during my nightly dog walks that I’ve recently resumed, only to find my shins hurting like a sonofabitch, I’ve got to assume that actual running shoes have a bit more cushion in certain areas than walking shoes to help soften the blow, per se.
My plan, aside from buy new shoes, is first of all to simply incorporate a little more jogging into my walks every couple of days until in theory eventually I’m doing more jogging than running. I currently walk 3.5 miles in about 65 minutes, which gives me roughly an 18.5-minute mile. Dropping from there down to 15 doesn’t seem too bad, although I know that endurance is going to play just as big a part if I want to be able to do this for over three hours straight!
Maybe this means that I’ll be able to start writing a little more about my efforts again in the future, too. I kinda dropped off there because life exploded and made an absolute mess of the progress that I had been making earlier this year, but with any luck maybe something new and different will help get me back on track again.
13 miles – what in the world am I getting myself into?!