Friday, January 8, 2010

Marathon training day #1...with new toys!!!

By: Brent

And hello faithful followers. This Xmas season the family decided to go a new route and instead of buying for everyone, we chose to draw names. my name was chosen by my mother-in-law. I liked my chances to score good stuff because she has always been very good to me and also loves me being a "runner". I say "runner" because I still feel like a rookie. I still get nervous at the starting line. I still feel like I look like a dork in my race gear. being 6'-3" I will always worry that my shorts are to short. with that said I have run in 10 official timed races. 5k's, 10k's and 3 half marathon's. most of this has happened in the last 2 years with all 3 half marathons happening in the last 6 months of 2009. so, when my name was drawn I put together a Xmas list for her. drum parts and a handful of running gear. Just before I emailed it to her I thought, I should put down a race entry. I had done some research and had already found a race in Toledo that I liked the sound of. The Glass Bowl Marathon. 26.2 miles of pain and suffering, so I made it the last item on the list. A couple weeks later I got a call from the old woman saying check your e-mail. There it was..... Race Confirmation. Oh crap! That brings me to yesterday. Race day is April 25th. I have used the Runners World Smart Coach for most of my races. It's a good FREE program that is FREE. you can customize it by weeks training, using other race times and you can really customize it to work for your schedule. Well with the input that I gave it this week starts the training. 16 weeks of runs. shorty's, speed runs, runs that I will be gone long enough for my children to forget what I look like. It includes cross training days and what type of run you should be doing, like speed, tempo or what not.

Last night was day one and it was quite cold. I REALLY didn't want to go out but a big part of me did because I had new toys to try out. i have always liked running in the dark, only problem is....the dark. I never had a good lighting system. I have had Nathan vests with glow sticks in the them so people could see me, but nothing to help me see. For Xmas, my wife bought me a Energizer head lamp. Not the $90 Petzl, but the one you get at Target. $20.79. I expected nothing. First off, once you install the provided Energizer batteries and click the button, you get an aircraft landing beam of sunshine. not like the old plastic flashlight your dad gave you 14 years ago. a serious "this thing is going to blind you in 3.7 seconds" ray of light. then you click it again, and 2 red LED's shine for a dull reading light like in a small Cessna for a night flight. a third click provides you with the beam I used. 2 smaller LED's than the first one, but a better life length to the batteries and plenty of light to find your way. It had a solid fit, even for my misshapen head and I never felt like I had to change my stride to keep it on. Another nice feature was the tilt option. you can set it to shine lower than straight out from your eyes. I tilted it down to display the majority of the beam about 5 feet in front of me. I must say for a economy headlight, I was very impressed. To any runners that are looking for a unit that won't break the bank and let them go out into the night, I would have no concerns recommending this one.



All in all the run went well. Snow was packed good and slippage was minimal but in a review coming soon....Yaktrak's Pro ice slip on. Very Exciting!




Miles logged...3.9.








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