NOW RECRUITING

Late February probably seems a long ways off to most folks. And, well, to me too. But I'm already looking ahead to it, as the Snow Joke 1/2 Marathon lands on Feb 28 this year.

For the past two 1/2 Marathons I've done, I've followed Hal Higdon's beginner training plan. This time around, I'm going to do the Intermediate plan, which incorporates some intervals and tempo runs to work on overall speed, and increases the weekly mileage to work towards better endurance. All-in-all it's a more aggressive plan than what I've done in the past.

While I hesitate to say that I want to improve my time on this race (since snow conditions can often alter abilities on this course), I'd at least like to train to be able to do better than I have before.

And since my running has been fairly unstructured since August or so, I'm looking forward to getting back into training mode.

The Plan I'll use has a structured schedule for 12 weeks, which means I'll officially start following it on Dec 7. That's a month from now, I know. So for the next month I have two main goals:

1. Start running on a regular basis and slowly start increasing my weekly mileage so that the first week of the Plan doesn't knock me out with a 17-mile week. I won't be working on speed per se, but will be working on re-building my endurance for the next month, running at least 3 times per week and starting to build from a comfortable 10 miles per week to 16 miles per week. This doesn't seem too challenging, as I'm plenty comfortable running 5-6 miles at a time. But I need to work on my consistency in my training and start running more than I have been (aka get off the slightly easier elliptical machine in the morning and get on the dreaded treadmill!)

2. Find a training buddy (or two, or three...) to train for this race with me. Having someone else to talk with and share stories about training, and to have run the race with me (or at least at the same time) is so great. The last two 1/2 marathons I've done, I've run with Robyn and Amy, and they were great accountability partners. Although Robyn was training from NC and me from MT, we still chatted about how training was going and had made a promise to each other to run the race, and thus helped keep each other on track. And with Amy, it was great to have company for doing the longer runs on the weekends-- we had great times chatting while running. So for this race, I'd at least like to have someone else who I know is going to do the race and wants to be an "accountability partner." And beyond that, it would be terrific to have someone to do longer training runs with... even if we don't end up doing the race together (if we have different paces or whatnot).

So... who's interested? If not you, do you have friends who may be? If so, have them get in touch. They're welcome to use the plan I'll be using, or use their own. It's tons of fun (well, okay, sometimes it's fun... other times it's just hard). But it's a great way to meet people, get in shape, and have a goal that's non-work-related.

Oh yeah, and one other goal: find new shoes. Mine are starting to wear out (again), and so I need to get a new pair before I start upping my mileage very much. I'm thinking of trying a more trail-running-type shoe for these winter months, as much of my running may be on snow-covered roads or trails. Any thoughts?