training programs

It feels good to have a goal: to be purposeful, direct, hard-working and generally full of the go-getter-spirit.

Em, who I haven’t actually met, seems to have that sort of thing down-pat going by her blog. One look at the slogan at the top of this page should give you a clue this all pretty unfamiliar to me.

What am I going on about?

Well, if you were paying attention yesterday, you would have noticed the post, apart from being exquisitely phrased and full of wit and insight, basically outed yours truly as a confirmed marathon starter in May this year - probably the Williamstown Marathon run by my good friends the Sri Chinmoys. (By the way, don’t go looking on their site for stuff about the Willy ‘thon, as of right now it ain’t there).

Saying it out loud is psychologically important, as it’s that much harder to back out. I think I only finished the 2005 Melbourne marathon out of pure shame…

Anyway, I’ve been scouting around for some sort of training program. Hal Higdon has worked for me in the past, but I’m a bit annoyed about having to convert everything from miles to kilometres. Bloody backward septic tanks.

I’ve found a training plan that might suit - it’s by someone called Susan Hobson, and it’s from the Canberra Marathon site. It looks pretty good to me. It’s for people who want to run sub 3:30 and who already run a fair bit.

Hey! I run a fair bit (about 60k per week)! I want to run sub 3:30!

I’ve put a post on the Ausrun forum about it to see what others think, and we’ll see if anyone responds.

Alcohol

Thanks to everyone’s support on the alcohol front. It’s really not that big a deal though - I don’t even drink much. Just a couple of g&ts before lunch, a bottle of wine or two over dinner, and the occasional long island ice tea while driving. Not enough to affect me.