Friday, January 2, 2009

I Actually Figured Out How to Do Split Times

Temperature: 31 degrees. Feels like 26 degrees. Today was going to be my 7 mile run. Well, my son's power wheelchair and my daughter's tire had other ideas. Long story short, my being a Dad will always take priority over running. Therefore, I settled for a 3 mile run. At least I was able to wear my new Nike running outfit! I decided to look at the owner's manual for my wristwatch/timer to see how difficult it would be to actually use the "lap time" feature. It was easy! No longer will I have to attempt to memorize my split times. Life is good. Yesterday's conjecture about the sun melting the snow on the road was incorrect. The snow did a great job of slowing me down as I ran through it, and also sticking to my shoes once I was out of it. The first 2 miles of uphills and downhills consisted of me focusing on staying upright and out of the path of motor vehicles. My split times were 9:10 and 9:06, but more importantly I didn't wipe out. The last mile was mainly snow free, and I closed with an 8:12. Overall, My time was a slow and steady 26:28, which averages out to an 8:49 per mile pace.
As I wrote in an earlier post, as of now I'm planning on running the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio on Sunday, May 3. I now have a beautiful looking marathon training schedule courtesy of my son Robert's personal care assistant, Christine. After struggling for over an hour to set it up in a table, I decided to ask her for assistance. Fifteen minutes later, it was done. It is indeed a work of art! The training schedule is the same one I followed as closely as possible for my two previous marathons. Fortunately I'm only required to run a total of 17 miles (or more) this week. I need to run 8 more miles in the next two days, which shouldn't be a problem.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

You're ahead of me. I don't know how to use the lap feature on my watch yet. When I want to use it, I am already running and it is impossible to figure it out on the go.

Congrats on beginning your next marathon training. Where did you find the training schedule? I think I am going to use something from RunnersWorld for the marathon I am doing in June.

Happy New Year.

Marathonman101108 said...

Hi Lisa! I actually found a training schedule a few years back on the NY City Marathon website. They had listed a "First Time Marathoner Minimum Training Schedule " and an "Advanced" training schedule. Back in 2007 I followed the advanced training schedule as closely as possible, and ended up injured and unable to run for 2 months. As a result, I missed what was supposed to be my first marathon in Hartford CT in October of that year.So, I decided to follow the minimum schedule instead after that, and run more miles weekly whenever possible. That kept me injury free and able to complete the Cox Marathon. I also followed that schedule for training for the Hartford Marathon, and now the Flying Pig Marathon. I can send it to you if you'd like. :-)