Today, 11 months after starting running in July 2011, I registered for another race – this time I’ve registered for the 2012 Columbus Marathon. Although I didn’t complete a marathon by the time I was 40 (which was a very, very optimistic idea), hopefully this means I will complete a marathon while I am still 40.

Throughout June I’ve been training hard with the goal of running 4 times a week to get the base mileage up to about 25 miles a week – Getting to that number has been quite interesting considering I’ve only been running 3 times a week in the past. I remember running 3 days a week last year and my legs would ache all the time. Eventually I got used to running 3 days and my legs stopped aching. I didn’t really realise that was the case until I started to run 4 days a week and now my legs ache nearly all the time! The higher temperatures we’ve been having this month has been my biggest concern due to overheating and sunburn but the heat has not been as hard to cope with as I thought it would be – as long as I have my water belt with me – even on the short runs.

Last Saturday I ran 11 miles for my long run and only started to find it hard around mile 8 – and that was mainly due to the heat – the legs and lungs didn’t feel too bad. Considering 11 miles is actually week 6 in the Marathon Rookie training program, I feel I’m doing pretty well and have a good base ready for the next few months.

Chatting with other running friends this weekend was really encouraging and recapping my progress over the year was an reminder that I now find things easy that used to be hard, so the prospect of running 26.2 miles is not that daunting (yet)

Keep an eye on the blog as I continue to run, come join me in my training runs and good luck on your own training plans.

I’m looking forward to the RunFest2012 on July 7th, a kick off event for training and hopefully I’ll win a door prize and get some running gear.

Who is with me in running the 2012 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus Marathon (to give it it’s full name)?