My 15-mile experiment

Sooooooo, yesterday morning, I went for it. I was pretty much caught up around the house and with work, so I got an early start and headed for the treadmill. I set it up as I typically do, random elevation at level 8. This means my elevation randomly changes from 5% to 11% throughout my walk. I had my speed set at 4.2 mph.

Since my treadmill will only allow a maximum distance of 10 miles, I had to reset the program when I finished the first 10. No biggie. A 15 mile brisk walk took me 3:35:25. I had lots to occupy myself while I treaded away. One of which was Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. Holy crud! What a show that is!!

Anyways, when I finished the walk, I imagined jogging it all that time...not necessarily running it. And I'm thinking that it would be no problem. I did break to run upstairs at mile 10 to grab an energy gel and refill my thermos. And that helped for sure for the last 5 miles.

My next experiment will be the light jog for that same distance. I'll be curious to see what the time reads for that. I really can't jog any slower than 6.5 mph on the dreadmill. It just doesn't work for me. So this will for sure be an experiment.

I finally heard back from Hal Higdon in regards to which of his marathon training programs he would recommend for me. I got the feeling he was leaning towards the Novice 2 rather than the Intermediate 1. It doesn't differ too much from the program that is offered on Runmeter. So, that being said, I may just stick with Runmeter. If I don't feel like I have gotten enough miles in any particular day, I can always do a second run or walk that day. I don't think the short run days will be my issue. I think if I focus on those long run days as my true challenge days, I'll have it made.

Have you ever run a marathon? Did you follow a training program? Which one did you follow?