Happy and healthy ... Here we go again!

Wow!  It's been such a long time since I have posted.  I've gone through a knee injury and run a 50k and a marathon since last writing.  The 50k was run injured (6:15) and the marathon was done without much training (4:57).  But I am now ready to run again.  I'm feeling as close to 100% as a 41 year-old runner can!  So here we are at day 1 of training for the Big D Marathon.  The goal is a 3:45 race (that's about an 8:35 pace).  I have a long way to go but 4 months to get there.  Race date is April 15, 2012.

Here I am before running today.  I was only going to go 6 miles but I was nervous and cold!  Six miles should not seem far to a distance runner.  But today it seemed like an eternity.  But you can't finish without taking the first step!  So here we go on another marathon journey.

I'm not gonna lie ... I started getting tired after the first mile!  It used to be my body that gave out first on long runs.  And that was usually at about mile 18+.  Today, it was the breathing.  I just don't have any endurance at all right now.  I walked a little during miles 3 and 5.  And I got an unexpected break during 5 as well.  Hello train!  I heard it and ran as fast as I could to the tracks but was about 15 seconds too late so I had to wait for it to pass.

At 5.25 I looked at my watch and realized that if I ran really, really fast, I could make 6 miles in under 60 minutes.  That's a pretty respectable time for an out of shape runner so I ran hard.  And I mean as fast as I could go.  I was huffing and puffing and I stopped my watch at exactly 6 miles and could not have gotten any closer to 60 minutes if I tried!  I'll take a 10 minute pace for my first training run but it was an ugly run!

As you can see from this graph, my pace was pretty consistent except the couple of walking breaks.  And my splits actually weren't that bad.  It's a good starting place and it feels so good to be running again!

Tomorrow is my rest day so I'll see ya Tuesday!