On June 22nd, when I ran (as hard as I could!) 3 miles in 28 minutes 46 seconds, my mile splits were 9:20, 9:33 and 10:00. One week later, on June 29th, when I rank a 10K, my first three mile splits were 9:05, 9:12 and 9:19, and I still had over 3 more miles left to run. Progress!! :-)

Go run at Hayward ;)

Way to go MM!

I'm doing my first triathlon in September. Today I biked 31 miles keeping a 14mph average. The trail was a lot easier than Wednesday's ride 26 miles in roughly the same time.

Keep up the progress dude :-)

Great progress!
I especially like how your mile splits are getting closer, with a 14 second spread instead of 40. Even pacing is your best friend.

Great progress and I admire your goal.

I do not want to sound negative, but I have seen too many of my friends ending up with injuries, so please, listen to your body. That is, when you are a bit tired and generally down, just give yourself a break.

In a literal sense, you are aiming for a marathon not a 100 meters run. So patience is also part of the deal. I hope it makes sense.

In the meantime go for it and keep us posted.

By the way what is your age?

I really appreciate the encouragement, PMs too, amazing what a little positive feedback can do to motivate. In my four years at UofO I never ran on the track at Hayward Field, perhaps I'll have to head over to Eugene some Wednesday night for one of those weekly events open to the public, great idea 2WL! Damn, a triathlon? Maybe when I turn 50! Suppose you need to be either Mad or Crazy for this stuff... Even pacing indeed, last night on the elliptical I was feeling a bit arrogant (me, no?) and was killing it for the first 40 minutes, barely limped through the last 20 minutes, good lesson this early on! I just turned 40 this year (running a marathon is my first official mid-life crisis!) and have ruptured both Achilles' tendons playing basketball, so thanks for the advice on listening to my body, and also to Gen. Lee for pointing out that I should not be racing against my best time every training session! Any other words of wisdom out there?!

I'm six years older than you MM. So, I guess the triathlon is my mid life crisis too. I'm only doing a sprint this time. 600 m swim, 13.4 bike ride, and a 5k run. My daughter is going into 8th grade next year and wants to either join the Cross country team or the swim team when she gets to high school. So I put this up to her as a goal we could do together and help get her ready for either.

Her aunt and uncle just signed up for it too.

http://www.reddit.com/r/running/wiki/faq

Well, I am off now for a mystery run in London at 18:30. And, as it is the first Monday of the month, we will be heading for the pub afterwards... The best part, after 42 years of pure experience ;)

I've been wanting to get started running, and have done a few short runs in the morning before work but haven't been able to get myself on a regular schedule.

It sounds like you've found the motivation you need to transform yourself, and that's awesome!

Marx
I don't know what kind of running you do, but I come from a really flat country, the Netherlands, and I ran in stadia and in forests etc. that were all flat. Once I started running on terrains with lots of ramps: wow, that changes everything. It's a recommendation I don't often hear, but I think running on hilly terrain is the key to success.

Alderian, the motivation is essential to starting a running program, or even just running for fun. If you don't like it, or don't have a goal, it's very difficult to maintain any kind of regular running. Of course, the most fun is when you enjoy running for the sake of running.

"l'Art pour l'Art", so to speak

MM - I highly recommend that you learn to run a "negative split", that is, running your second half faster than the first half. As you well know, it really sucks to be limping along for the last half of the run. On the other hand, it's exhilarating to feel your pace picking up as you fly along the second half. And if you do any 5k or 10k races as a tune up for your marathon, you'll definitely enjoy passing lots of people if you run a negative split. Much better to be the hunter than the hunted!

I run a little bit just to stay in shape, but rarely more than five miles. I can do 1 mile in 6 minutes, 2 miles in 14 minutes, and 3 miles in 24 minutes. I ran 5 miles the other day in about 47 minutes (minus a 3 minute break to vomit after mile 2; I guess I had a little too much dinner haha). Right now my goal is 5 miles on rolling terrain in 80+ degree weather in less than 40 minutes.

I could never do a marathon unless I got really, really serious about running. I respect you and wish you good luck, MM.

July 1st: Weight: 226.4 pounds
July 3rd: Weight: 229.6 pounds
July 3rd: Ran 3 miles in 27 minutes 52 seconds

Splits: 8:38, 9:19, 9:54 (OUCH!!)

Apparently training for a marathon is similar to a game of diplomacy, I went from thinking I had a shot at a solo to desperately wishing to be included in a draw, overnight... Bummer!!

After hearing my step father-in-law talk about his running days, starting one marathon with a sub 6 minute mile, and how he'd regularly run 7 miles under 49 minutes, because he wanted to do it in under a 7 minute mile, I started thinking even bigger than I had. Hoped to run 3 miles this morning in under 25 minutes. FAIL!!!!

After my 10K last Saturday and a hard workout in a hot gym Sunday night, I think my weight Monday morning was partially due to being dehydrated a bit (and physically spent). Monday was a day off, and I had a huge plate of pasta for supper, doing a bit of carb loading...

Anyway, I'm glad I'm only in week 2 of my 18 week training! Time to focus on the advice of not racing every workout session (as if what I did today was a race!), as well as working on some negative splits (and getting back to much more balanced splits). Today was a shot to the chin, for sure, but I put in my miles (without walking/quitting), still got a solid workout even if I was slow, and I'm excited to do better next time out!!

I was expecting the cycling and swimming to take weight off, but I'm closing in on 190lbs. Everybody is saying that it's just muscle mass. Are you experiencing anything similar?

CA, I'm not sure... I am doing some light weight training, but I'm doing 25 reps at each station, so I'm hoping to not be putting on a lot of bulk. My goal is to lose ~30 pounds in 20 weeks, and even though there are ups and downs, I've lost 7+ pounds in 3+ weeks, so I'm roughly on pace given that the pounds will be more difficult to shed as time goes on...

Cool good luck with it.

MadMarx - keep working on the pacing and even splits. I guarantee that not only will you feel better but you'll run faster overall. Start off too fast and you put yourself into oxygen debt and then you're screwed. Think of it in Diplomacy terms. Say you're Russia. You don't go for Rumania, Berlin, Sweden, and Ankara in '01, right?

I don't mean to nag, but well-paced running is a particular passion of mine and I love to see people enjoy the results they get when they get the hang of it.

I love how we're using allusions to Diplomacy just for MM

FlemGem, I guarantee your message was 100% delivered yesterday morning while I was running! That said, actually putting your strategy into place may be a bit more difficult to do than I'd hope, but I think I can do it eventually. For example, when I ran that 10K, I didn't even know if I'd be able to do the whole thing without walking for long stretches, and even though doing it under 60 minutes seemed like a logical goal, when I started my only concern was to start slow in the hopes of finishing. That slow start was a surprisingly comfortable pace that I was able to maintain (for the most part) for much longer than I expected, so I will definitely go back to that strategy, especially on the Saturday long runs (7 miles this Saturday, 8 miles the next Saturday).

Anyway, I'm often a bit of a slow starter, but I tend to be on the stubborn side, so I expect when all is said and done I will improve relatively constantly over time, I just often wish the slope of that improvement would be a bit steeper.

I'm finishing up week 2 of 18 on somewhat of a high/positive note. I went into this morning's 10K hoping to practice this negative split concept, and I mastered it a little too well, at the 5 minute mark RunKeeper said I had run 0.48 miles, so worse than 10 minutes per mile, oops! Still, I did improve, and overall my splits were trending the right direction, I just need to work on starting a little bit faster, without starting too fast, a delicate balance I'll focus on for the next 16 weeks.

July 6th: 6.22 miles (10K) in 59 minutes 11 seconds

Splits: 9:58, 9:40, 9:32, 9:33, 9:27, 9:12, 8:24 (last 0.22 miles)

QUESTION FOR RUNNERS:

Assuming you will start a run at 9am, what do you eat for breakfast, and at what time, if you will be running the following distances:

A. 6 miles
B. 13.1 miles
C. 20 miles
D. 26.2 miles (on race day)

Thanks in advance!

And when you get bored of running, you can do some Chess-boxing as a cross-training activity. ;-)

I prefer Secret Agent Laser Obstacle Chess.

A. Probably nothing, but I'm not big on breakfast.
B. half a cinnamon raisin bagel, or a piece or toast with pnut butter. I would eat it on the drive to my run site so probably 20-30 min. Before I started running.
C. Same as above breakfast. But when I get to about 15 mile long runs and above I will go out and plant Gatorade on my route, maybe every 2-3 miles one of those small 6 oz waters or gatorades. Also for a 15+ long runs I am bringing GU. It's a gel that you take to keep calories go in you during that long of a workout. I take one about every 5-7 miles.
D. Race morning I will have a half a bagel, half a cup of coffee, and water/Gatorade. This would be about an hour before hand. Must have GU on race day as well I take 3 during a marathon at about 6, 13, & 19 mile marks.

@Marx
Once a week, run for an hour without taking breakfast, only take half a liter of water. Especially after 40 min, your body - screaming for sources of energy - will start digging into your fat reserves at an insane rate.

I'm running a 3-mile race with obstacles/mud a month from now. 3 miles is well within my ability (I routinely run 4-5 miles daily), and I have enough overall strength to traverse any reasonable obstacle.

Has anyone here ever ran a race with obstacles/mud? If so, could you enlighten me a little bit? How should I prepare differently?