19 days to go

May 12, 2009

19 days until the marathon.

Yesterday I had to work during the spinning class, so I did some spinning on my own for 45 minutes and then worked on my core for about 15 minutes. It had been a really long day, so after getting home I pretty much just fell asleep.

This morning I slept in and got up at 7AM, it’s been really nice getting awake early in the morning so that I have plenty of time to get additional tasks accomplished before I would normally be awake. After vacuuming part of the house I got myself ready to go on a run. I ran to the Baylands and on a trail for about 40 minutes, then came home, stretched, showered and soaked my legs in cold water. At that point I ate a lot of food and here I am.

One thing that’s awesome about having the marathon coming up is that I constantly have people asking me about it. Over the last few days I have begun thinking about a game plan for the actual event, here’s what I have so far.

Walk the first 10-15 minutes when there are thousands of people trying to get by, I have no reason to rush and I might as well enjoy the beginning and let people pass me early, and I’ll inevitably be passing them later anyway.

After this walking portion I will jog really slowly for about 20-30 minutes and then take a break and get some food and energy.

During the course of the marathon I will be running for 20 minutes and then resting for 2 minutes. In the 2 minutes I will eat and drink, and recover for the next 20 minute interval. I’m not sure what my pace will be for the marathon, but I’m thinking around 9:30 which would be a little over 4 hours, but all I really want is to finish and have a good time.

I have heard that some friends are thinking about heading down there for the race and others that live in the area will be going. It’s supposed to be an awesome venue, with 46 live bands, a headliner concert afterward and roughly 20,000 runners. The weather should be perfect, hopefully not too hot during the last 6 miles.

It’s great to have so much support from those around me. The other day my brother told me that he asked one of his co-workers who runs numerous ultra marathons (50 miles) for some advice. The information was very intelligent, mostly about how to keep my energy up and how to eat and drink before and during the event.

I’m off to go enjoy the rest of the day

Ryan