January 7th: Where Are All the Resolutionaries?

There were a handful of people in other areas, but not a soul here.

OK, I get it: It's cold out.

In my last entry -- and in a subsequent conversation with an old friend -- I tried really hard not to pass judgment on the "resolutionaries" at the gym on Saturday. Everyone has to start somewhere, just like I did almost a year ago. I don't want to be a crank now -- I'm rooting for all the noobs to make it stick. And hey, I get it -- I've skipped workouts for a bunch of crappy reasons, too.

But as crowded as the gym was on Saturday, it was that empty this morning. You would think that cars and gyms don't have heating systems.

Yeah, it was cold running to and from the car.

I guess the upside was that I had my pick of the treadmills. I put in a relatively easy 4 miles in 37:19 -- a 9:19 pace. The usual 0.5 percent incline. Just about all of the reading I've done on marathon training -- especially first-marathon training -- says that most of your miles should be easy. Building the strength in your joints and muscles takes precedence, as does teaching your body to burn glycogen over fat. So I'm trying to take that to heart and stay in the aerobic zone. But I have to say that it was weird getting off the belt this morning feeling like I hadn't really exerted myself all that much. That's going to take some getting used to.

I've mentioned that I'm basically going to follow Hal Higdon's Novice 2 plan, with a few tweaks. I do want to mix in a few more pace runs than he has, and I want some interval work -- but not as much as in the intermediate program. The other thing that is really niggling me about the plan is that the overall mileage is just not that much. Almost all of the reading I've done suggests that you need to peak in the neighborhood of 50 miles in a week for top performance. But the longest week in Higdon Novice 2 is 36 miles. I'm cognizant of overtraining, for sure, but I just think I'm going to feel underprepared at that distance. I'm already well ahead of where he wants you to be during week 2, and I expect that trend to continue until my taper.

Tomorrow is my mid-week medium-distance run, which I think will be 6 miles. I'll likely mix in an interval run on Thursday, then the next few days are a jumble. I'm trying to do my longs on Saturday, but the New Jersey Marathon is holding a training run on Sunday, and the weather is supposed to be good. So now I can't decide if Friday or Saturday should be rest day (with the other being cross-training day). First-world problems.

Total miles since starting the blog: 210.7