got some new snazzy running shoes on sunday that i'm breaking in. new balance 817s. size 7 2A if you're interested. solid shoes recommended to me by rob at canyon ranch, aka my personal shoe god. reading reviews online they say the shoes a ridiculous (in a good way) in terms of support and stabilization. they're actually meant for "heavier runners" (who knew there was such a thing? or maybe i fall in that category???) but i think that's a good thing net-net. the shoes are super clunkers (read: heavy), but my self-appointed marathon coach (aka andy) says that's a good thing because you want the cushioning and support the whole way through. anyhoo, i'm going to run with these for a few weeks and consider them for marathon shoes (although i'll get a second pair). oh, and if i buy a second pair, i'm definitely buying them from the new balance store in highland park -- specifically from steve who hooked me up with two pairs of free socks and a super nice stainless steel thermos for free in addition to my $89 shoes. ahhh.... new socks. the man knows the way to my heart. hehehe....back to business... so about this training schedule i've devised... i researched the heck out of things. hal higgon, runners world, random other schedules, etc. i've researched them all and developed my own, loosely based on all of them (if such a thing is possible). the funny thing with marathoning is that as soon as you announce you're going to run, everyone becomes an expert on how to train. for example, there's hal's program. andy (who's run the marathon a few times before) says it's too little running and you'll feel like crap the next day. my doctor says it's too much running -- and she's a crazy runner who does something like two 7 mile runs every day. yes, two. and then there are others who swear by the program. so who's to say, really?
i have two rest days every week (usually tuesdays and fridays) and one cross training day (thursdays). long runs are on sundays. my longest run is 20 miles. i have two of those in the schedule. i'm thinking of bumping the earlier one up to 22 miles. i've heard if you can do 22 miles, you can do 26.2 because no matter what shape you're in (kenyan or otherwise) the last 4.2 miles suck, but you're so delirious at that point it shakes out. by the end of may i'm running over 30 miles almost every other week. not too much if you average it out (4+ miles a day), but considering i only run 4 miles every week, that's starting to get up there. by mid-july i'm up around 40 miles a week.
i really like this "rest day" concept. in my
by the way, for the record, i'm not a runner. i run, but i'm not a runner. fair game?
tonight shall be spent finding good music to be-bop (aka my running style) along to. if you have suggestions, shoot me an email. i'm always looking for good tunes. nothing is too embarassing as i've found that spice girls and whitney houston make surprisingly great songs to run to.
