Finally!

A post!

I just haven't been into blogging so much recently (that's a first -- not!), making me even more appreciative of you guys who are sticking around to read my (as of late) infrequent posts.  I've got a number of ideas for future posts (well, I guess I'm a little late for the "Year in Review" and "Goals for 2010" posts that seemed so prevalent a week ago) so maybe I'll get on it a bit in the next few days . . .

Meanwhile, I've sloooowly been getting my running feet underneath me again.  Good thing, too, 'cause that marathon is only something like 15 weeks away.  I had started a training plan last week, but after doing some more reading and looking around at various schedules and concepts, I've modified it a bit more.  What I came up with is a combination of my original plan, mashed together with another, and then all switched up to fit in with my weird schedule.  So.

I basically took the meat of it from Hal Higdon's Novice 1 program -- this was my original plan, which consists of 4 days of running a week, focusing mainly (exclusively, for me) on milage, and not paying a whole lotta attention to pace.  Sounds like me, yes?  A few days ago, I read something about Runner's World Smart Coach, and bopped on over to check that out.  Here you input your time from a recent race (I based mine off my 2:21 in the Death Valley Half), how much you're running a week currently (10-15 miles), how hard you want to train (I got wild and chose Moderate), plus the distance you are training for and the time frame you wish to do it in.  Presto! A custom training plan!  I gave it a good look over, and decided that I liked the milage from Hal's plan better, but got to thinking that it wouldn't hurt me (much, hopefully) to incorporate a little speedwork into the mess.  So I cribbed some of the pacing and tempo run information (me! doing a tempo run! this oughta be interesting!) from the RW schedule and imposed that into Hal's program.  If it works out right, and I stick with it (I'm shooting for an 80% compliance rate, we all know I'm a lazy girl), supposedly this will bring me to a 4:50 marathon finish time in May.

Huh.

Meanwhile, I am up to doing a yoga class almost every day when I am home.  Really!  I'm totally into it, and am already noticing some definite improvement to my (arthritis-ridden) spine.  Wonder of all wonders, now a month and a half in I am starting NOT to fall down a ridiculous amount of the time.  Mind you, I am still falling down with depressing regularity, but it's kind of a normal amount of falling down for a clutzy beginner, as opposed to the amount of falling down you might expect from someone unfamiliar with the concept of gravity.  Progress!