Last week my official training began. Oh, I’ve been running for a while now, but that was just building up the base so my legs wouldn’t fall off when I really started training. Last Monday I started running intervals to increase my turnover, which should, in theory, help me run faster. On Thursday my long run went up to seven miles. This week it goes up to nine.

And I have to say so far it’s all going swimmingly. If only the temperature would go down a little. It’s been 95 degrees or so for the past three weeks and I haven’t been able to run outside at all. My last attempt was about a month ago. I had planned a nice seven mile jaunt around Lake Braddock, a picturesque little lake 2 miles from my house with a nice flat, and oftentimes shady 1.5 mile trail surrounding it. I figured I run out there, do a few laps and run back. Trouble was that when I got to the non-shady parts of the trail I almost collapsed from heat exhaustion. I only made it 6.5 miles before I had to hang...

So yesterday I was just finishing up a maintenance run. 30 minutes at an easy pace, which these days is about 12 minute miles. I usually run these on the treadmill because it’s easy on the legs, I can control the temperature and I’ve got this really cool setup with a 22” TV/DVD player to keep me company, but yesterday the weather was so nice I just couldn’t pass up running in it.

Anyway, about 25 minutes into my run, maybe two miles in, I run past this guy. He’s probably about ten years older than me, walking from his car to his house. He looks at me running in his direction, smiles and asks “how far you going?”

“How far am I going?” … Its that guy!

I am certain he didn’t recognize me but I immediately knew who he was. I wanted to say “Guy, it’s you! How you doing? I’m good! I’ve gotten a lot better at this running thing since the last time we talked. I worked myself up to three miles a run, and I’ve got this cool GPS thing and an iPod and new...

About a month ago I was in the middle of a walk/run. Nothing spectacular. Just alternating walking and running every five minutes for a half an hour on the treadmill. About halfway in, while running, I felt a twinge in my left knee, which as most of you (hopefully) know is my bad knee. Considering how light my workout was I didn’t think much about it and kept on going.

But the next day walking up the stairs, I noticed it hurt.

And the next day it hurt too. Needless to say I was a little frustrated. I hadn’t even started really running yet. If walk/runs on the treadmill were going to take a toll on my knees how was I ever going to run a 15-20 mile long run? Or the marathon itself? I couldn’t really scale my workout back much more than I already had. But before I let depression fully set in, I consulted my sister.

She gently suggested it might be Fred.

Every time my wife has gotten pregnant, I gained about 20 pounds. It happened...

Three weeks into training, I'm finally getting some distance out of my runs. Not a lot, but something that isn't embarrassing to admit. The first two weeks all I did was walk. Week One was 20 minute walks. Week Two was thirty minute walks. Week Three, walk-running. And my last run I did thirty-five minutes of five minutes walking/five minutes running. Went over two and half miles.

For those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning you may be wondering why the heck I'm starting out so slow. Marathon training is different than 5k training. Keeping the legs strong and healthy is far more difficult, and so my runs will be much slower, and over much softer ground. Increases at this stage will be pretty gradual. Ok, back to the point of this entry ...

So yeah, I'm finally working up to a decent speed and a decent time ... and then I get a cold. It's funny, but throughout the winter ... through the H1N1 scare of October and November, to the Incomparable...

I dialed the number. I could hear the phone ringing. This was it. If he picked up the phone there was no turning back.

“Hello.”

Here we go. Full steam ahead.

“Hey Mike, it’s Hen.”

“Hey man, what’s up?”

Last chance. Make something up or you’re doing it.

“Mike. It’s been ten years. It’s time.”

Pause.

“No way in hell, my friend. But good luck to you.”

“Understood.”

And it was done.

I did understand, of course. Mike and I don’t live as close to each other as we did back then. And he’s married with three kids now. But he deserved the first call. He jumped into the breach with me ten years ago when I announced to the world I was planning on embarking on an insane, crazy journey of training for and running a marathon with no previous experience. He ran the long runs with me and kept me going when my knee gave out. He was at the starting...