What's Next?

It's time. I've been lollygagging around, enjoying "running" instead of "racing" for long enough now. It's time to get back on the hardcore training wagon.

I've picked out my next Marathon race, The Knoxville Marathon on April 3, 2011.

The next step was planning my goal: a 3:59:59 marathon. (My current PR is 4:12:57 from the St. Louis Marathon back in 2009!)

So with a race and a goal in mind, it was time to settle on a training plan. I initially just went with a Runner's World plan. I liked it because it had suggested paces for the runs, etc. But, what I didn't like was the amount of mileage in the plans I kept picking... Sure, I'd LOVE to say that I'll run 60 mile weeks multiple weeks. But, I feel like that's just asking for me to get off plan. So, because clearly I'm experienced enough to make up my own training plan (haha), I decided to do just that. So, I took the paces from the Runner's World Plan and added it to a Hal Higdon Plan to come up with a plan that has me running 2 20 milers, a 19 miler and an 18 miler and maxing out around 55 miles a week. (I think low 50 mile weeks is my training sweet spot). And lots of tempo, interval and hill runs. Fun times.

Believe it or not, I'm actually excited about putting the work in and training. I sent the training plan to my running buddy Steve and he looked it over and approved (important, because he will be running with me on these runs about 4 days a week).

To be honest, I was nervous about the prospect of failing at my goal immediately after I made the training plan... can I really run that fast for 26.2 miles? But, after the Monkey, I'm feeling good about it.

I'll be training for 16 weeks, starting Dec. 13. This should get interesting...