Qualifying for Boston by running under three hours will take time and baby steps. This year I want to lose much of my unhealthy weight by creating a healthy foundation and start learning how to run faster.
I will lose weight and create a good health foundation by eating healthy and exercising right. Losing 35 pounds and fitting into a 34 inch waistline pants before the Chicago Marathon is a very achievable goal. Losing about a pound a day is very sustainable weight loss. Theoretically, I can get their sooner but I’d rather have sustainable results. There will be weeks where I lose five pounds and others where I won’t lose any. Let’s be realistic. We live in a perfectly imperfect world and will do my best to create better habits. I need to seek balance and harmony with what I love (Coke and my mom’s Filipino soul food) and what I need (a well balanced nutrition dense diet). What good Filipino child would pass up my mom’s adobo or kare-kare?! None. That’s why I’m seeking some balance. I want to be able to eat my mom’s cooking while moving towards my goals. I should be able to run a few minutes faster because I’m not burdened extra weight.
Between now and the Illinois marathon, I plan to focusing on developing good training habits. Sleep is important to recover from training. Time management is an essential tool to get everything done and to “fill the unforgiving minute.” Using a training log to monitor my progress is also a good habit have. Developing good habits now allows me to focus on other skills later. To keep on top of things, I started writing up weekly and daily action plans. I can get a lot more done in less time by investing a small amount of time writing things down. There are so many times that I had things to accomplish for the day and spent a lot of time trying to remember what they were. Beth M. gave me a great idea of creating weekly menus. I think she learned it from Weight Watchers. I will be adding detailed menus in my training log. I am also using Hal Higdon’s Novice training schedule to keep me on track.
After the Illinois marathon and a short break in training, I want to start learning how to run faster. I decided to learn this art after establishing good eating and training habits. Doing everything at once can be overwhelming. I decided to sign up for a CARA training group this year and I hope Matthew can give me some insight on getting fast. Six months seems so far away. I don’t want to get into detail until I complete the first six months of this year.
Most importantly I want to be injury free. Listen to my body. The only time I would ever ignore this would be during an Olympic qualifying race or my last chance for Olympic gold itself. That being said, that means that I must be vigilant and prevent injuries always. (Based on my current resources and skills the best I can probably hope for is barely earning a sub-three hour run and qualify for Boston.) This is where the training log can be useful. I can identify what is giving me reoccurring pain not associated with pushing my limits and adjust to it. I might be getting sick because I’m not sleeping enough. Perhaps my diet is too lean and I need to eat more calories so I’m not lethargic or constantly in a bad mood. (Yes, I consider these injuries) Injuries will sideline me and prevent me from training. It will slow my progress. Slowing down for a week can mean saving myself a month or more of frustration.
Losing excess weight, working on building healthy habits, and staying injury free will provide a good foundation for qualifying for the Boston Marathon. It isn’t ground breaking stuff. It’s effective ground making progress. It’s time to go out and do it!
This is a wonderful post Mark! You can absolutely accomplish your goals that you have written here! I feel you on mom’s Filipino food! There’s no way I can stay away from her adobo or sinigang!