Getting Back

on the wagon. I've officially fallen off the marathon training wagon, but today I am making the attempt to get back on. March means it's pledge drive time in PBS land, so my schedule always gets really hectic this time of the year. At the station I work at, we pledge live on-air from March 1st-16th. It's a really fun time, but it starts to get crazy juggling all of my normal day to day responsibilites in the office, plus all the work and pre-pledge and post-pledge things that have to get taken care of in the studio. It makes for long days and 7 day, 70 hour work weeks, and I always have a difficult time juggling my work schedule and training. Last year it wasn't so bad because I was training for a half marathon, and it was relatively easy to get back on track with my mileage. With a full marathon training plan, I've found it's not so easy to catch back up. I've only really strayed from the plan this past week, so I hope too much damage hasn't been done.

Luckily, I am off all day today and I am going to get an 18-miler in. It is cold and raining/sleeting, so I am going to head to the gym in about an hour and do the run in three 6 mile segments - just to break up the monotony of being on a treadmill for three hours. I'm really hoping that next week I can get back on track and stick to my schedule - I might modify it slightly since I have been so fatigued from work. I would rather get something in and than do nothing at all. The good news is that starting on the 17th everything will go back to normal.

I think I am really stressing about my training more than usual because I want to do really well in Cincinnati in May. My family is going to be there and I am going to be running with my sister Megan, and I just want to be able to keep up. And I would love to run it in 4:30. This would knock about 35 minutes off of my previous marathon time, which seems crazy, but I really feel like I can do it. I guess we'll see!