Thanks Pre

After qualifying for the Boston Marathon last year. My plan was to do a minimal training plan, go to Boston, run a 4 hour marathon and buy a bunch of souvenirs to remember the occasion.

Last week however, I was reminded of this inspiring quote…

What was I thinking? I am a healthy runner with two legs! I have a race on my calendar and this would be a great chance to show people what that you can thrive a plant-based diet. I need to remind myself of why I run – animal equality. Sure, this will be a lot of training and some tough, winter runs but it is still far better than what farm animals have to endure.

This quote by Pre made me come to my senses. I have now decided to attempt to break my personal marathon record of 3 hours and 17 minutes that I set last fall. That race was the second of two marathons that I ran last year. I trained from late January to late May for the first one and trained from early June to mid October for the second. That finish time was essentially eight months of training.

If I want to beat that record, I will definitely need to train more. This is why I have decided to start immediately to get nine months of training in. Here was my first official training run.

It was all I could do to maintain a 7:51/mile pace for a mere 3 miles on this run. I will need to be able to run this at about a 6:30 pace nine months from now. Obviously, I have a long way to go.

This run was a great example of why it is best to always have a race on your calendar. There was a storm approaching and when I walked out the door I heard thunder. I had every reason to turn around and skip it but since this was a training run, I did it anyway and it loved every step.

Man, it feels great to be training again. Thanks Pre.