Greg's Running Blog

I’ve been writing about my goals and how I’m still not quite there yet but I haven’t really written much about my long term goals or where I’m going with this running thing. Sure, I have logged some decent mileage since I have started running in January and sure, I have improved my running greatly over the last 5 months. But how did I do it and more importantly why did I do it and even more importantly, what’s next?

My first and original goal, in terms of running, was to finish a 10K race. But I didn’t just want to finish it, I wanted to be in the best possible shape I possibly could by then. Considering how difficult it felt to even run three two plus one miles on my first run the best possible shape wasn’t going to be something all that stellar. But I set out to run the Cowtown Marathon’s 10K race. I made that goal so it would give me a reason to run and a reason to train. This goal also required me to follow a plan.

Thanks to my co-worker, an avid runer, marathoner and fellow weight loser, I found Hal Higdon’s website. Hal’s an older guy in his late 70s who has completed over 110 marathons in his lifetime and authored several books on the subject of running and marathons. His website provides an abundance of information and a multitude of free training plans from 5K races all the way to marathons for runners at all abilities and fitness levels. I decided to go with his Intermediate 10K training plan and started it on Week 2.

By Week 4 I ran my very first race, a 5K that the plan has called for. Shortly after the race I got injured due to a bum knee that I should have let to heal but I overcompensated and developed tendinitis of my right foot instead. It forced me to quit running for a week and only left me with two more weeks before the big 10K race.

8 Week 10K Intermediate + 12 Week Spring Advanced weekly summary

After my first 10K race I needed a new goal and a new plan. I needed a goal to keep me motivated and I need a new plan to keep me on track. So I have decided that I will run a marathon. Running a marathon and finishing a marathon are two different things. Some people just want to finish one, get across the finish line, get the beer and the finisher’s medal so they can say they have done it. If you have been following me for a while you would know that this is not me. I don’t like to do things half assed. I like to do them right. This meant I couldn’t just point at the calendar and pick a marathon in the next couple of weeks and make a run for it. No sir! I knew that I would have to train and be in top shape to be able to run it in a way that I would want to run it.

Most marathon plans are 16-20 weeks long. So it’s not only the 26.2 miles that’s a marathon, the length of training that gets you to the start line is a marathon of a training session itself. You can’t just wake up one morning, roll out of bed and walk up to the start line and expect to perform well. Sure, some might pride themselves in doing a “no training marathon” but I wanted to do it the right way. It meant that I would have to look at marathons in the June/July time frame. Let me remind you that I live in Texas. There just aren’t a whole lot of races let alone marathons in June/July in Texas. And while I was committed to the plan of running a marathon I was not committed enough to travel out of state for one. So that left me with no option but to look for a fall marathon.

I found one in Tyler, Texas, the Tyler Rose Marathon on 10/10/10, the same day there is a small race in Chicago known as the Bank Of America Chicago Marathon. So I have decided that while I would not travel to Chicago, I would most certainly drive 3 hours to get to Tyler Texas for a small and cozy inaugural marathon. But since the Tyler marathon is not until October it left me with 30 weeks of training left. What was I supposed to do with all that time, the marathon training was only going to take 18 weeks?

Lucky for me, Hal Higdon also has a 12 week plan that he calls the 12 week advanced spring training plan. This plan called for numerous 5K and 10K races along the way and this is what I had been following for the past 12 weeks more or less. I have ran three 5K and three 10K races that were on the plan and I have reported from every single one of them. The end of the plan got kind of messed up for me due to race scheduling and timing so i kind of finished the plan a week early which left me with nothing but relaxing easy runs for the last week. Ironically I have logged the most miles in a week last week on this easy week.

So now that I have finished my spring training, I have started working on my marathon plan this week. I will be following Hal Higdon’s Advanced II marathon plan for the next 18 weeks and I should be in top shape by the time I’m going to toe the line in Tyler, Texas on a hopefully cold fall morning in October.

If you have read this far I will also tell you that my goal is not only to run a marathon. My goal is to run a marathon and finish it with a Boston Qualifying time of 3:10:59 or less. So there you have it. My new plan is to follow the 18 week marathon plan and finish with a sub 3 hour 10 minute marathon in October. I have started my fat to fit transformation on 10/25/09 and I’m planning to BQ (Boston Qualify) on 10/10/10. I call this my C2BQ plan. Why C2BQ? There is a plan called C25K which means “Couch to 5K” and it’s supposed to help people to get up and start running and it gets them from being a couch potato to running a 5K in 9 weeks. My plan is the Couch to Boston Qualify in a year plan. I’m 7 months into it and I have another 18 weeks to go.

Since I will be concentrating on my running throughout the summer and my weight is sitting at a comfortable 165 lbs I will probably not worry so much about shedding the last few pounds but I’m sure losing them will be a side effect of my vigorous running regime.