So I had done my research, asked all the right people and now I had to put it all together into a training programme. The only problem is every website I got to when I Googled ‘Marathon Training’, ‘Marathon Training for beginners’ or ‘How to start running’, I found that the average training schedule was aimed at someone a lot further down the fitness road than me. In the words of one website, “It takes on approximately 26 weeks to train for a marathon. It can take longer depending on fitness level.” 26 weeks? 26 weeks! Talk about over-estimating my discipline and under-estimating how out of shape I have become. There is no way I am at that level. I cannot even run!
I needed a training schedule that would start me at the very beginning… walking. So I searched and searched and searched and after thinking perhaps this was so crazy a challenge that not even the internet could help me, I came across a site called Running Planet. Finally a website that acknowledged that people who want to learn to run, by and large have not run before.
On the contrary this site embraced those like me and I found the “8 week Program for Beginning Runners.” The Learn To Run program aims to take you from walking 30 minutes a day to running 2 miles. Just think in 8 weeks I could be running 2 miles! Ok so it is not quite the 26 miles I am aiming for, but before you run you have to learn how to walk/jog. I had found my schedule and so on Friday afternoon Dalya and I sat down and made a calendar for the next two months. We are going to be walk/jogging for 5 days a week for 7 weeks until the last week when we will be running the full 30 minutes. The thought that I could get there so quick makes me nervous, scared and the fear factor is a constant on my mind, but I have made a commitment. I have told enough people that I cannot back out and there is this blog and then there is my PR friend who is getting me to write letters to magazines, charity organisations and even Oprah. No this is one thing I cannot back out of
I needed a training schedule that would start me at the very beginning… walking. So I searched and searched and searched and after thinking perhaps this was so crazy a challenge that not even the internet could help me, I came across a site called Running Planet. Finally a website that acknowledged that people who want to learn to run, by and large have not run before.
On the contrary this site embraced those like me and I found the “8 week Program for Beginning Runners.” The Learn To Run program aims to take you from walking 30 minutes a day to running 2 miles. Just think in 8 weeks I could be running 2 miles! Ok so it is not quite the 26 miles I am aiming for, but before you run you have to learn how to walk/jog. I had found my schedule and so on Friday afternoon Dalya and I sat down and made a calendar for the next two months. We are going to be walk/jogging for 5 days a week for 7 weeks until the last week when we will be running the full 30 minutes. The thought that I could get there so quick makes me nervous, scared and the fear factor is a constant on my mind, but I have made a commitment. I have told enough people that I cannot back out and there is this blog and then there is my PR friend who is getting me to write letters to magazines, charity organisations and even Oprah. No this is one thing I cannot back out of
So instead of thinking of a way out I am instead doing as I am told. I am simply following the program. I am doing no more and no less than is required of me and in that way I am learning discipline and, of course, how to run. Training starts on Sunday… wish me luck!
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