The Long, Hard Road

Duration = 50:11
Distance = 3.62
Calories = 432
Max HR = 155
Avg HR = 145
Running Index = 42
Max Cadence = 105
Avg Cadence = 90

[There have been a few sessions since the last entry, but I'm going to look forward rather then go back and get them.]

This is the start of my training for my next Goal Race, the 2010 USAF Marathon in September. One thing I've learned about myself is that I need a goal to focus my attention. I have a couple other significant events next year: the Bataan Memorial Death March in March and the Trail Half Marathon in April. I will also run a series of 10Ks over the winter and am looking to have about a race a month until September. As the USAF Marathon will be my first race at marathon distance, my goal is to finish, but I would like to finish well.

The Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands, NM is my intermediate goal. It is marathon length, but I don't plan to race it. I will be participating in the Military Heavy division. This means, for me, my US Air Force utility uniform with approved combat boots and a backpack with at least 35 pounds of payload. My plan is to finish and I have all day (about 13 hours) to do it. As the name suggests, this is in memory of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines during WWII. We still have a few survivors of that event who are on hand for the start of this commemorative event. It is honoring my military heritage that is my primary intent for this event. Also, the 35 pounds will represent the weight I will have lost over a year and a half of training. Because I expect to do this event at a significantly slower pace than any of my other races, I will do all my training leading to it as long, slow, distance (LSD) runs. This will be a long base-building cycle patterned after some of the writing of John Hadd. It also takes a page from Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training. Basically, I will be training at, or near, the pace I hope to hold for the March.

In April, I plan to run the Trail Half Marathon that I missed in 2009 because of my deployment. We'll see where we are at after recovering from the March and extend the training to the end of April. The last race before I start the specific training for the USAF Marathon will be the Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day. I will likely using Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program as the basis of my marathon training.

The goal for this week is to set a baseline to start the base training. The current plan is for 45 and 60 minute runs at about a heart rate of 150. Today, I started at 4.0 mph (15:00) for the first 5 minutes and then increased by .1 each minute until I reached 4.5 as this got me into the 145-155 range I had as my target. I then ran the rest of the 45 minute session at 4.5. At 45:00, I dropped to 4 and then dropped .5 each minute to 2.0 and finished after 1 minute at 2.0 with a final heart rate of 126.