marine corps marathon

The Marine Corps Marathon is a few hours away. This will be my fourth consecutive running of this marathon and quite possibly my last for a while. But more on that later.

This year, construction on the Rock Creek Parkway has forced the organizers to reroute parts of the course. Construction, especially in a city and even more so in a city that is such a high security risk (being our Nation’s Capitol and all) has got to be a race director’s nightmare. Granted the first 4.5 and the last 5.7 are not even run in DC but that still leaves a great deal of headache.

So here it. My very first blog entry EVER. What took me so long? Well, lets just say that I'm a private person and am more of a listener than a talker. But after years of tossing around the idea to run a marathon, I finally decided that this was the year. I signed up to run the Marine Corp Marathon this October.

Well week 2 of training is in the bag! My mileage for the week was 22, with a long run of 8.5 on Sunday. Some of the highlights included new running shoes, being chased by a dog and running more then planned. All in all a good week.

I started it off by going to Born to Run, http://www.borntoruninc.com/, a local running shop which offers discounts for those running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. After analyzing my foot and having me run a treadmill they brought out several shoes for me to choose from. I tried them all on and ran in each pair. The shoe that fit the best and felt the best running in was the Nike air zoom vomero 2. After a week in running in them they feel great and have a great cushiony feel to them when I run.

Well I came out of my first week of training with 2 major observations. The first observation being that I need a new pair of running shoes. The second observation being that I might actually be able to run a marathon.

I covered 19 miles with 2 rest days this first week and concluded with a “long” run of 5 miles on Sunday. I am sure that is not that long to most people on this site but for me it was.

I am a pretty novice runner who has signed on with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to run in the Marine Corp Marathon in October. A pretty daunting task plus I need to raise $2,800 at least for the charity. My goal is actually to reach over $5,000. I thought your running would be a great spot to post about being a first time marathoner and the trials of training for anyone who might be interested. I also thought it would be a great way to spread the "word". For more information on the charity and how to donate please click here: http://www.active.com/donate/tntepa/agoyette

So I plan on doing my first run tonight (test out my stamina) and will go from there. Also I would love any tips any has to offer in regards to fundraising or actually running a marathon.