Mile Markers

Hallo, happy readers. Can I just tell you how nice it's been *already* to see how many of you commented/chose to follow me/just *opened* the email? Thanks. :) I feel spoiled.

So I wanted to share some milestones -- er, mile-markers -- with you. These are the smaller goals I want to meet if I'm to qualify for the big day in April 2011.

1. Get in shape!!! Deadline: November 22, 2009

I'm pretty out of shape right now, but I aim to be at least back up to marathon distances and in much better condition by the Philadelphia Marathon, for which I'm registered. How cool is this: the marathon ends at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the infamous steps Rocky ran up in the movie. :) Nice. I don't expect to turn in any P.R.'s (that's personal record) at the Philly Marathon -- it's just a date for me to get a good run in (it's supposed to be one of the better, faster, and coooolder marathons -- yay), and meet my weight loss/fitness goals.

2. Run a normal marathon and be in even better shape (read: lots of cross-training): Deadline: Disney Marathon 2010: January 11, 2010

By this time I hope to be running normal marathon times (for me, an average pace of 10-11 minutes per mile ... still a far cry from Boston qualifying times!! more on that tomorrow), and do a *much* better job than I did at last year's Disney Marathon, when my mom KICKED MY ASS! Although Mommy, if you're reading this, I know that if you were running the race again this year, you'd still kick my ass, Rocky Marathon under my belt or not. :)


3. January 2010: Start online training with McMillan Coaching -- Greg McMillan coaches elite, olympic runners, like this girl, Paige Higgins, who WON the 2006 Disney Marathon:


For a small fortune (ok, maybe as much as I've spent on stupid exercise dvd's this year), you can pay to have him coach you online (this is geared toward regular runners like me, who seek the holy grail of running: qualifying for Boston). This is how I plan to actually get *faster.* I'd like to train with McMillan till November 2010, the last mile-marker here ... read on.


4. One last marathon before the big one ... Deadline: Marine Corps Marathon, October, 2010.

Already registered. It'll be fun.

5. And the last marker is THE marker: the 2010 Philly Marathon, November 2010. To "qualify" for the Boston Marathon, you have to submit a race time from a recognized course, and Philly's one of those. It's also apparently one of the "fastest" marathon courses for qualifying for Boston. Not all marathon courses are created equally ... though they're all 26.2 miles, some of them are hillier than others (read: harder), some courses are more crowded (read: harder and more obnoxious), and so on. Runner's World rated the Philly Marathon as the BEST race to use to qualify for Boston in 2007. And I'm hoping it'll work just as well in 2010.

If I run that thing in 3 hours and 40 minutes, then I'll end up here 5 months later. And you can stop reading this blog. :)