Friday

19 laps, 1:1 lap run/walk ratio, 34:37 minutes.

Okay, that was much better already! I got up early-ish today, so I got out there and finished my run before 9 am—feels pretty good to have my exercise done already.

I'm all excited and enthused about going to Honolulu again. Even though I've barely started training, and my time is still pretty slow, I don't care! I'm going to get my miles down to 16 minutes! I'm going to lose ten pounds! I'm going to go to Hawaii and have a great time! I'm going to raise a bunch of money for the American Cancer Society!

Oh, yeah. I went to the AIDS Marathon website, and found that the $2000-fundraising-make-your-own-travel-arrangements deal is only available for Florence, Italy, not for Honolulu. That, plus the realization that driving to Encino every Sunday for the group run is not really any more likely this time than it was last time, settled it: I will sign up for Team ACS and attempt to raise a few bucks for the American Cancer Society, and do the training on my own.

I got out my Jeff Galloway book, Marathon, last night to go through my calendar and set up the training schedule again. Turns out, if I do the 26-week schedule (and do a long run the week I'm in San Francisco for Yaoi-Con), I don't have to start training until June 17. I think they're starting the AIDS Marathon training in May because of the Florence Marathon, which is a few weeks earlier than Honolulu. So, I have a bit more time to just do my three-times-a-week two mile runs and get in a little better shape. Or, I could start early and have some extra time built in. Hm. Maybe I'll go ahead and stick to two miles for this week and next week (when I'll be at Fangoria), and see if I feel like trying three miles the week after that, which would be May 27.

Now that I know how many laps = 1 mile (nine laps plus 80/218 steps), I can measure out the shorter runs around the house. I could even train for the whole marathon in my driveway, if I didn't mind running around in circles for 7–8 hours. I should probably do at least half the long runs in town on pavement, to get used to running on harder surfaces—Honolulu's mostly run on freeways and paved roads. Anyway, time enough to worry about that when I get up to ten miles and more.

And, I can say that 19 laps = 2.0284 miles, and that 19 laps in 34:37 = almost exactly 17 minutes per mile, not 17.3! Heh. At two miles, it doesn't make much difference, but when I get to the longer runs, those fractions will add up.