Week 3

We're up to 8 miles this week. Once again, lack of sleep was my only problem.

It was good to see some familiar faces in my pace group this morning. Everyone is so committed and I was impressed that some people got up early to drive from places as far away as Long Beach (we train in Griffith Park).

We added some incline to our run this morning, taking us through Glendale up a minor grade.

Its amazing how much better my day is after a morning run.

Swim

We're not supposed to run the day before our Saturday training so I decided to mix it up a little and get back to swimming this afternoon, which I intend to do once per week.

The West Hollywood pool is really nice and is a convenient 5-10 minute drive from my house. Its $3.00 a swim for a non-resident.

Today was the last day of the afternoon swim sessions, so it looks like I'll be going for a 6.30 AM swim on Tuesday or Thursday mornings going forward.

I spend most of the time doing the breast stroke, as I'm hoping it will tone my arms and chest, the same way running has toned my legs a bit.

Nike Plus

I've been wanting to to try the "Nike Plus" iPod accessory for some time, but was ambivalent because I thought it only worked with Nike shoes, which have a special compartment that houses a removable sensor. The sensor links to my iPod Nano and tracks my steps, which includes distance traveled, time, calories burned, etc..

Then I went to the running store. The salesperson showed me a velcro pouch that was only $5.00, which I can affix to the laces on my existing shoes (which are only a couple months old). That sealed the deal. The Nike Plus kit is a great value at only $30.00 and is really cool.

Once you link it to your iPod, you can press the center button on the Nano to get audio feedback of your running progress (over your music), including distance traveled, pace and elapsed time. This prevents me from having to continually look at a display while I run.

It also automatically uploads all running data through iTunes to the nikeplus.com site, where it keeps tracks of all runs, allows you to assign them to mappable routes and charts progress, including "fastest mile," "farthest distance," etc..

I'm going to include progress widgets on the right-side navigation of this blog so I can see an up-to-date graphic of my running activity.

Week 2

We had almost twice as many people in my group during my second week. It is really great to see such a high-level of participation and people from all fitness levels and experience. Over half of our group are first-time marathoners.

Our 7-mile run this morning was a piece of cake. It probably felt this way because I'm used to running this distance at a much faster pace (about 6 or 7 minutes per mile, instead of the 10-minute mile we've been averaging). Training for a marathon is much different than short-distance running and I've had to adapt to slowing down. I'm sure I'll appreciate this much more as we get into the low 'teens of our mileage goals in the coming weeks.

Start of Training

I officially started training for the AIDS marathon this morning.

Getting up was difficult. Mostly because I had a hard time going to sleep at 11 PM last night. I can already tell that this will probably be the most difficult thing for me during the program.

The training this morning was really amazing. I missed the "time trial" runs from the previous couple weekends, so I had to estimate what pace group I belong in. I chose the 11 minute mile group, as I felt confident that I could handle that pace, knowing that I typically run about 6 or 7 miles in an hour.

The members of my group were very encouraging and helpful and answered a lot of my questions. Apparently, the pace you run at during a marathon is supposed to allow you to hold a conversation. If you are running any faster than that, 26.2 miles might be difficult.