...and the Boston Marathon training officially begins.

Training Day is finally here...

2012 Feaster Five

So tomorrow marks the beginning of the official Boston Marathon training.  Most marathon training programs are about 18 weeks long.  The training program that I've decided to do is the Hal Higdon Novice 1 Marathon program (or some variation of it).  It's designed for first time marathon runners which for all intents and purposes is what I am.  I'm not counting the 2011 BayState Marathon since I did that with pretty much no training and my results reflected that lack of training.

What I've been doing since September up until now was nothing more than getting my body in shape to begin this marathon training and also getting into the routine of exercising A LOT.  In three months time I've racked up just over 500 miles on the road and on the treadmill.  Add that to the fact that I've been eating salads for lunch instead of fast food and cut out most of the Bud Light calories and the result is my weight dropped from 204 lbs. to 166 lbs.  So there you go.  That's the secret to weight loss.  Burn more calories than you take in.  It's simple math.

My final "pre-training" run was a rainy 10 mile run around Pelham.  That mileage will be steadily increasing from now until three weeks before the marathon when I'll be doing my longest training run which is 20 miles.  Most of these long runs on the weekend will be done with my Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge teammates under the tutelage of our team trainer, Jack Fultz, winner of the 1976 Boston Marathon.

So phase one is over and now it's onto phase two which means a lot more running outside (often in the dark) and running at faster speeds.

Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Partner Program
While this is only one small paragraph of this blog entry, this is actually a pretty big deal.  I found out this past week that I've been accepted to the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Partner Program.  The program pairs up DFMC runners with current pediatric patients of the Dana-Farber Jimmy Fund Clinic.  I haven't found out who my patient partner is yet, but I'm looking forward to meeting and getting to know him or her and helping support their battle with cancer.  My wife Angela was paired up with a DFMC runner for the 1996 Boston Marathon while she was a patient at Dana-Farber.  So we've come full circle.  I'll surely be posting much more about this program once I meet my patient partner.

Heart Health Study
I've also been accepted to participate in a Heart Health Study at Mass General Hospital.  The study is to determine the effects of marathon training on the heart.  So I'll get to have my body hooked up to an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram, and other expensive machines to see what this marathon training is doing to my heart, good or bad.  In other words, I'll be a lab rat running on a hamster wheel.

Fundraising Update
To date, we've raised $1,054.80 for Dana-Farber!  Thank you each and every one of you for all of your support!!!  If you would like to donate to support my run for Dana-Farber, please visit the following link:
http://www.rundfmc.org/2013/andrews

That's all for now, and let the training begin!