It has been a smidgeon in excess of a month since I began my training for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront marathon. In short, I could not have chosen a worse training regimen for the first month than I have.
The idea of running marker runs of one mile, two miles and three miles in the first month only makes sense if you are in good enough condition to run these distances. After eight years of inactivity, running three miles overtaxed what my knees could do at the time. It was interesting to see how long it took me to run these distances, but I did so at the expense of an extremely long recovery period between marker runs.
If I had to do it all again I would have done strength training targeted to my legs for a month coupled with a daily regimen of stretching - possible even learning some variation of yoga (e.g. Hatha yoga). Only then, after a month of strength training and stretching would I have begun to engage in outdoor runs.
This Saturday I will resume training outdoors (preferably on the PHS track) after two and a half weeks of strength conditioning and stretching. It is supposed to be in the low to mid 60's this weekend. If my knees fail me this weekend, I may half to consider running a half-marathon this fall.
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