The Goals and Schedule

"You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can't know what's coming."
Frank Shorter

Running a marathon is no easy task. One website I came across noted that less then one percent of the people in the world can say they've run a marathon. In order to accomplish this, you need to have some very clear goals. While I am sure this list will expand as time goes on, the goals I have set at this point are as follows:

1.) Start and Finish race.
2.) Set training schedule and do everything I can to keep up with it.
3.) Weigh in at 180lbs on race day. (215lbs at this posting)
4.) Make running a regular part of my day.

These goals are simple and attainable. While I would like to finish in under 4hours 30 minutes, I'm not going to set any time goal for this race. While I can say I have technically completed a marathon, the '99 race doesnt really count. 1.) it would have taken me less time to drive from Hartford to Washington DC or fly from Hartford to London than it took me to finish and 2.) I have no solid proof that I completed the entire race because my friends tied one on at Boston College and never made it to the finish line.


The Schedule

Setting up a training schedule early on is important to reaching the goals. Since I have not run in years, I am starting off very slowly. I hope to run a total of six miles in week one. A mile on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, three miles on Saturday and an hour of cross training (cycling, swimming, elliptical, etc.) on Sunday. I will take every Monday and every Friday off. Every Saturday will be my "long run" and every Sunday will be cross training. Wednesdays will be the "sorta long run". I will post the full schedule in the future and will post what I actually run and a critique of how close I stick to the schedule.