Terra Firma

This little beauty (and many like it) will be sorely missed.

Now that I am back on dry land again, I need to refocus to the marathon. With a few more pounds on my frame than a mere 10 days ago, I set out Sunday just to "feel" where I was at in my training. No watch, no Garmin ... just a known distance on a well used course and my legs.

Within 100 feet I knew that running on a ship for even 8 days had messed up my gait and my form was all wacky. I believe that I concentrated on my running form throughout most of my Sunday morning run. I completed 9.4 miles at a decent pace and felt good about the whole thing, but it left me with some things that I need to train on over the next few weeks.

Over the course of my marathon training, I have four planned 20+ mile runs. Two are already completed, and the last one left my semi-confident that I could get around a 3:20 if I work really hard at it. With last weeks break and about 6 weeks to go, I have to really keep my runs focused. I need to work on achieving the endurance I'll need to keep a fair pace going throughout the race. My planned long runs are as follows:

Dec 6-7: 20+ miles, 45+ mi/week
Dec 13-14: 13+ miles, 42+ mi/week
Dec 20-21: 20+ miles, 47+ mi/week
Dec 27-28: 11+ miles, 38+ mi/week; "The Taper" begins.
Jan 3-4: 8-9 miles, 29+ mi/week

More about the cruise later. Now I have to go into work.

Happy Running!