Great to be back (to Marathon Training)

Well due to inquiries regarding when I would have a webpage again about my training and my recent departure from the Brooks Marathon Project, I have decided to launch a Blog so my friends, family and anyone else interested can keep track of my training leading up to the Ottawa Marathon - Canadian Championships, and one might say...Olympic Trials...if only...

In a nutshell, over the last 6 months I had been living in Toronto training with the BCMP putting in some really solid miles and very good training, however I felt that my situation in Toronto was not ideal (on mental, emotional, physical and spiritual levels) and with the buildup to Ottawa looming I had to make a clutch decision to move back to BC. The decision was made, and here I am in Richmond, happy as I have ever been and my training is reflecting that. As with all experiences I am thankful that I went to Toronto, I wouldn't be where I am now without that chapter and I am grateful for the friendships, lessons learned, and knowledge acquired while out there.

So here we go, as I write this there are 71 days 11 hours and some-odd minutes until the gun goes off in Ottawa and I am very excited. Over the next 10 and a half weeks I will be doing 6 races, all of which will be during full training weeks so none of them will be at 100% rested state. The Vancouver Marathon will be a training run to practice gels and waterstations and is a perfect way to get my head ready for the marathon 3 weeks later. One of the very valuable things I have taken away from coach in Toronto was to ease off on the volume so I will be sticking to about 115miles/week, so that I can really hammer the workouts and get fast rather than just strong through logging big miles, as well I will be rolling my long runs at 5:45 mile pace. In addition to this i'll be doing some classic mile repeat workouts, LT runs, 200m strides, and medium long runs. Its a simple program, some might say old school, but its just running, to quote Bomba: "It's not rocket science"

Thats all for now, i'll post at least on a weekly basis, next post after the Comox Half-Marathon Sunday March 16.