I realized today that I left a very important detail out of my introduction: which marathon are we training for? Our plan is to run the Disney World Marathon on January 9, 2011. January 9th is the birthday of one of my very best friends, and she has requested that as her present, I finish the marathon wearing Mickey Mouse ears. I told her I'd see what I could do.
Anyway... first run complete! An easy 3 miler through the park behind the VA. We finished in 30:22, so our average pace was about 10:07 min/mile. Our goal time was 10 min/mile, and we actually ran a good part of our course faster than this, but we lost some time on the hills. If you've ever run in Atlanta, you know that the hills are unavoidable. And exhausting. Not, I imagine, as difficult as running in, say, San Francisco, but challenging nonetheless. Conquering the ubiquitous inclines of the ATL will likely be our weak spot, so I'll have to be sure to plan some hilly workouts. Then hopefully Orlando will be flat and we'll be over-prepared and our time will be totally awesome. (Hey, I can dream.)
As a post-qualifying exam present to myself, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 405 (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=142&pID=11039). Passing one's graduate school qualifying exam is a major accomplishment, preceded by 4 months of constant stress and studying, so upon finishing, it is mandatory that one showers oneself with presents, preferably expensive ones. I got to use it for the first time today, and let me tell you, this baby is worth it (plus they are having a $50 rebate right now, and I had money left over from my other present to myself, so I feel extra justified in my purchase). I'm slightly technologically challenged, so I haven't quite figured out all the bells and whistles yet, but it can keep track of distance, pace, speed, grade of the hills you're running, etc etc etc. Plus it's got this "Virtual Partner" feature: you enter in the pace you want to maintain, and then you compete with your virtual partner to stay on or ahead of pace (and you feel sad when you're little virtual partner beats you... motivation to run faster next time!). And since it's from Garmin, naturally it has a GPS, so you can connect it with your computer and upload routes you've planned, as well as download your workout data to your computer to keep track of your training history. Short story long, highly recommend it.
I cheated a little and also went to yoga today (like I said: junkie). There's an Ashtanga class at my studio on Tuesday nights. If you want a really good, full body workout, Ashtanga is for you. It's a very athletic style of yoga based on Vinyasa, so it's essentially a flowing series of poses that involve some serious strengthening and stretching. To give you an idea of the intensity, I can't really lift my arms right now, but my legs were so well-stretched that I felt great during and after my run--no hip, knee, or calf pain. It moves quickly and you sweat (a lot), so if you're worried that yoga won't provide a sufficient workout or you're not into the whole deep meditation aspect, you should definitely consider an Ashtanga class. Anyway, due to my double workout, Chris told me he was going to have to take me to an AA meeting: Athletes Anonymous. Whatever. It just means I earned this piece of strawberry pie.
As Chris so eloquently stated, "the road to 26.2 miles begins with a single 3 mile run." And indeed, it has.
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