The Other Big Thing in My Life Right Now

I thought I would also post about the other big thing in my life right now. I’ve begun training for the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon in January. Actually, I’ll be running both the Half-Marathon on Saturday, January 10 and then the Marathon on Sunday, January 11. This is called the Goofy Challenge and means that I’ll be running 39.3 miles over two days (while at Walt Disney World, so I’ll be walking a bit before and after the races, too!).

I’ve done the Marathon twice before, in 2007 and 2008, and enjoyed the experience so much that I decided to do both races next year. The training shouldn’t be too much harder than in previous years. I read somewhere to treat doing the Goofy Challenge as doing three half-marathons in two days. That way you can handle it better. (I should point out that I’m not fast, not at all, but I finish my races and I finish them running, so I figure I can do the Goofy. My times just won’t be all that quick.)

Because I’m doing the Goofy Challenge, I decided to try doing base training before starting my marathon training. Base training, as the name implies, helps develop a base fitness level for your race training. This article at Runner's World, Build Your Best Training Base, by Scott Douglas, helped me plan my base training program. Even though I started the program this week, I feel like it has helped me already. I’ve gotten out all three days so far this week that I was supposed to run and I’ll go out tomorrow for my long run (only 45 minutes and I’m usually just getting warmed up after 45 minutes). Once I start cross-training or lifting on the off days, I believe I’ll really start seeing and feeling the benefits of base training.