Julie and I are running the 2010 Chicago marathon and today was our first significant run in preparation for the event. The marathon is on 10/10/10 this year and due to travel this summer (which means we’ll likely be training less), we needed to get started a few weeks ahead of what our training plan recommended.
We are following Hal Higdon’s Beginner Training Calendar which is the same training plan I followed when I ran the 2000 marathon with my dad. This plan has you running 4 days a week with 1 day cross-training. Usually it’s a Tues, Wed, Thurs run which range from 3 miles as the start of the training to 10 miles at the end. The fourth run is a long run and we are planning on doing ours mostly on Saturdays. These weekend runs range from 6 miles the first week to 20 miles in mid-Sept. where the training peaks. The cross-training day is Sunday.
Here is a google calendar link to our training plan (technically starts the fist week in June). Chicago 2010 Training Program
Lots of things to figure out: shoes, clothes, kid-watching help, work schedules, etc. Training for an event like this takes a lot of effort and I am so excited that I get to do it with the wife.
I used an iPhone app named RunKeeper to track of today’s run. It has elevation, speed, etc. and the map it provides on their website is one of the coolest things for tracking runs I have seen. It’s just fun to play around with. I’m planning on tracking all my outside runs with this app.
