Training has started

They say that the number of new registrants to fitness clubs is double the number in January than it is in any other month, but that by February that enthusiasm has waned and the regulars have the gym to themselves again. I don't have a gym membership, but I did start up running and going to my work gym last week (just under the wire to say I started in December!) but there will be no early tapering off for me! There's no room for it.

The deal with the Joints in Motion program is that you raise money for The Arthritis Society and agree to run in the marathon (or half, or 10 K, or hike, or whatever) and they provide you with airfare and accomodation to the race, as well as training and some other things. Which is great because there's no way I could train for a marathon by myself. I don't know how, for one thing, and also, my self-discipline sucks.

So the training program is 16 weeks long, which means it starts up in July, and the requirements are that you can run 10 K prior to that. I also just read "Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide" (Hal Higdon) which advises an 18 week program starting with a "reasonable degree of fitness" and about a 3 month running base. I guess I do have room for tapering off, but since this is such an important project for me, it's just not going to happen. I don't want to be squeaking around with the bare minimums on this one.

There's a 3.2 K loop that the Cambie Bridge forms with my house, so I've been running around that this week. It's a far cry from the eventual 42.2 K, but for now it's a start and I like the ".2 K" parallelism going on there. So far so good. Next week I'll start running further (and further!) up the seawall.

More on this later.