The real training begins today

The past 12 weeks have been nothing compared to what is in store for me.  Today is a day that I have been dreading and looking forward to since January.  After I get out of work today, I will officially start training for the Half Ironman (HIM).  20 weeks of intense training lay ahead of me.  Nothing but pure dedication and hard work will get me through to the end.  Up to this point, I have thrown in a little biking and swimming with my normal running training.

My original plan was to overlap the training for the HIM with the final month of Marathon training, but I’m still not sure how that’s going to pan out.  The past two weeks, I have aggravated my shin splints so I want to take it easy.  I have thrown around a few ideas of how I want to approach the next month.  I have decided to prevent further injury and to let my body recover for the marathon, I will forget about my weekly maintenance and tempo runs.  I will switch my focus to the HIM training and incorporate my long runs (I only have 20M and 12M left) on the weekends.  Hopefully this will be a good approach to have a solid marathon race.  My main goal is to beat my previous marathon time (4:44) and still be able to function so I can pick up triathlon training soon after running.