First day of training

Today was the first day of training in the 16 week program. The training program I am following (from the Boston Marathon Website) lists Monday as a rest day, but we have our speed workouts on Monday and Wednesdays. So I have to move the days around a little bit and have my rest day on Tuesday or Wednesday. Is it a coincidence that Boston Marathon is run on a Monday, and the training program always lists Monday as a rest day?

Today we had a warm-up jog to the great hill oval track (about 2 miles). Then we did 7 oval repeats (about 350 meters) as a relay team. My team-mate was Erika and we ran really hard. My thighs were hurting a good bit near the end and I was having difficulty keeping up with Jess at the last loop. Nice stamina, Jess! What was interesting was I felt I can not clear my feet off the ground on the last two loops. The heaviness from fatigue was getting to me. At the end we jogged back to where we started. We ran for a total of 6.5 miles today, but my wristband recorded only 4.5 miles because I forgot to start it at the beginning.

The photos above are from the Ted Corbitt 15K. This was the last race of 2008. Due to bad weather (freezing temperature, frozen road), it was not a scored race. I was late to the race because I was working overnight and couldn’t get out on time, so I didn’t run with Rob and Erika. They ended up having two bandit pacers. Stacy and Bruno were there for part of the run with them. It was hard to run fast on frozen roads and I ended finishing at about 3:05 time. A memorable moment was when I found myself at the very end of the run being right behind Mary Wittenberg, the President of NYRR and Race Director of ING NYC Marathon (Last photo on the right). She was running at a fast steady pace and I tried really hard to get past her and the guy running with her. After she finished the run, she jumped right back in to run a few minutes with Gary Corbitt, Ted’s son, who was running this inaugural race in honor of his dad.