CLE Training Plan

I'm running the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon!

Since Columbus I had been deliberating my next big race move.  I did the Santa Hustle and Joe registered us for the Glass City Half.  I kinda wanted to return to my old stomping grounds in A-town to run the Athens Marathon, but I've heard that the course sucks because it's basically out through The Plains (The Plains is a town as exciting to view as it sounds) to Nelsonville and back on the bike path.  If it were through the most beautiful campus I've ever seen and the charming streets of Athens, I'd be more into it.  However, I am kinda itching to get back to Athens, so I'm pretty sure that I'll be running the half so that I can run Athens, but not be forced all the way up to Nelsontucky.

Anywho, I concluded last night that I'm going to run the Cleveland Marathon.  I registered because (1) I knew that would get me more psyched for training, (2) yesterday was the last day before the price jumped up, AND (3) because I registered as an "early bird," I'm going to get a free gift.  I imagine it'll be some junky thing that will best be stored in the trash can.

Training truly begins next week, but even this morning I felt the urge to get in a better-than-usual morning run.  To the left is my training plan, which I wrote with a little inspiration from Hal Higdon.  There is a lot of running and two things that I didn't include while training for my first two marathons: core and plyometrics.  Joe has been trying for a long time to encourage me to give P90X another go (we did it together prior to our wedding), but I never felt like doing it.  He impressed upon me the effect that core training has on running, but I just wouldn't do it.  Since I ran my first two marathons in pretty much the same amount of time, the second less than a minute faster than the first, I want to try to go all out and see what a more detailed training plan (i.e., more than only running) will do for my time.  The core and plyo workouts that I'll use are P90X.  For a little variety, I might switch back and forth between P90X and P90X2.  I hope that I don't give up on those Monday mornings.

I am also going to challenge myself to do a few things that I should have already been doing:

1.) Eat cleaner; get back to cooking more (Cut out fast food and prepare foods with less salt--the way we used to cook.)

2.) Be asleep no later than 10:30 (Needing to be up to run at 4:30, I should really be asleep much earlier.)

3.) Hydrate properly (I recently heard that mineral water is the way to go.  Yuck.)

I can't wait to see how this all pans out for May 19th.  What's you're next race?  Are you running Cleveland, Athens, or Glass City?