Today, I decided that I will consider this week the official start of training for the Mohawk-Hudson River Marathon on October 12th. As of this past Sunday I have 24 weeks left.

I will dedicated 17 of those weeks to steady aerobic base building, 5 to focused speed work, and 2 to tapering. I have a loose idea of weekly mileages and I will consult with some online training schedules to finalize it, but I am very much all systems go.

The first time around I had been sick from August-mid-September, then I slowly eased into exercising of any sort for most of October, running MAYBE 15 miles/week before jumping into a 19 week training plan for the Shamrock Marathon- which I managed to still eek out a 3:29:36, besting my seemingly lofty goal by a few seconds. My highest mileage week didn't crack 50, the last few weeks of training were kind of undisciplined and scattered and I dealt with some minor injury issues a few times. Basically I went into it blind and it was a great learning experience. I DID have an excellent "online coach" and the BEST support I could ask for (both in training and during the race): Lauralee.

This time, I have the marathon under my belt, along with the aerobic benefits that come with it. I have knowledge of previous mistakes and also knowledge that I CAN DO THIS! I've been running solidly for about half a year now, so I'm not starting from scratch, I'm starting with a pretty good fitness level, a VO2 max of 69mL O2/kg/min (which is pretty good) and all of the stuff I learned the first time through this. I have 4+ months to build up my aerobic base more, and I'm committed to being disciplined in this approach- last time too often I ran my "easy" runs much too fast and thus didn't fully benefit. This time around I STILL have a great resource in runners and the BEST support I could ask for in Laur- who will be moving in with me June 1st (can you say a summer full of running and exploring Wark together? SO FRAKKIN' EXCITED!). This time I have a loftier goal. Before March I thought 3:30 was a reach. I surprised myself. This time I know what I'm capable of, and while I don't have an official goal yet, something sub 3:20 seems fairly reasonable. This is really exciting to me and I just needed to get this all down. I can do this. I will do this. Wish me luck!