I only started running at the end of July. I know this, because I bought our treadmill on July 20th. And then I didn’t start running on it right away. I walked some and just goofed around. But then I decided that it might be useful in training to climb Mt Rainier next year. It wasn’t probably until sometime in late August that it popped into my head to run a marathon. And even then I was thinking that I could more or less walk/jog it in maybe 6 or 7 hours. Originally I thought I would do the Boston Marathon because that was a big one. But then I found out you have to QUALIFY for that one. I wasn’t going to be running a marathon in 3 hours and 20 minutes anytime soon. But then I decided to run the Las Vegas Marathon. I had enough time to train for it, and I could also visit my dad who lives out there.
Into the picture come Phil Maffetone. I found one of his books and bought it. I live the idea of training with a heart monitor, so I bought one. Then I bought another book on heart monitor training by John L Parker. It had some great ideas. I kind of took a little from both of these books and started running using a schedule from Parker’s book. Then I found a book at the library by Hal Higdon. It was full of schedules. I found a schedule in there that I liked better. The days meshed better with my martial arts class days. But then I bought a book by Jeff Galloway. He said I could take walk breaks. I had been taking walk breaks already, but he gave me permission to take walk breaks, and gave me systems to do them. With these guy’s help, my running and endurance has been improving. I am confident I will finish the Las Vegas Marathon without any problems. I wont be setting any speed records (except personal ones), but I will finish.
Of course, if the marathon all falls apart, it will all their fault.

Posted by Rob in Running on October 24th, 2006 |