My official training for my third/first marathon, Gasparilla here in Tampa, has begun. As I mentioned before I am calling this my first marathon since I consider the other two trial runs. Here’s a brief rundown on those:

Trial Run #1
Picture it, Orlando, January 2009, an under-trained B.o.B. gearing up to take on The Mouse. She only trained for a good 7 weeks and was told by various (READ: smart) coaches to not do it. But ignorance (and ego) is bliss and off she went. She finished in 5:17. In. Sheer. Total. Agony. It was a marathon shuffle the likes of which had never been seen. Remember that scene in Vacation, where Chevy Chase is trudging through the desert? Well, it was worse.

Our little B.o.B. could not have her only marathon be that one, so since she built up the mileage she thought, “what the hell, I’ll do Gasparilla in a couple of months.”

Trial Run #2
Picture it, a rainy, cold day in the beginning of March 2009, our silly little B.o.B. shows up for the Gasparilla Marathon not sure what to expect. She’s had a couple extra months of training and long runs and may make this her last marathon should she be pleased with it at the end.

It downpours.

She looks like a drowned rat at the finish, but ran a better time at 4:45. While happier with her time, she is sore as all get out and moving around like Sophia Petrillo from Golden Girls for the next three days. This will not be her last go round with the 26.2.

The Plan
This brings us to today. You all know I was in training for MCM when I got tendinitis. Boy, that sucked. But I am back to full health (other than the snot rockets from this stupid cold).

My new training plan is a bit less aggressive than the plan I was using before. While that plan certainly helped me get faster, it may have been too much for me. I have a bit less mileage in this one and can run 4 or 5 days instead of the 6 I was averaging before.

Thankfully, it still involves my hills (I’m coming for you Gangster!) and joy, of all joys, speed work!

With my new job and it’s later hours I am going to have to move stuff around to get all my training in. And by stuff, I mean my ass. Like, get it out of bed earlier on some days. Ugh, I hate the AM training. Oh well. For the redemption marathon, it’ll be worth it.

Happy Hump Day ladies and gents, get at ’em!