Today was Day 1 of my marathon training. Well, for the physical training, anyway. I've been mentally training for a few weeks now.

For Christmas (or maybe my birthday?), my brother and his girlfriend gave me a copy of Marathon: You Can Do It! and I'm about half-way through reading it. I've read enough to be comfortable with slowly starting to train. So I started today. Especially at the beginning of the training, there's a lot of walking. Galloway's program really eases you into a training schedule. I like that.

Already, I'm off to either a shaky start, or an inspired start: you pick. I had planned to start my walk at 0630. Well, it was closer to 0730 before I rolled out of bed. So that's the shaky start I was up late last nigh (in Raleigh for a concert). I was tired. It was dark. I could name a million excuses to keep me from going out the door this morning. But here's where my start was inspired: I ignored all of those excuses (thanks, mental training!) and went out for my walk anyway.

It felt good. I walked for about 35 minutes at a brisk pace. I saw a heron in the creek. I met a couple of people on the path. I found a Bible lying on a park bench.

In theory, tomorrow's training schedule involves doing a run/walk instead of just a walk. I'm going to just stick with walking for now. I have the luxury of being able to do that, because I'm starting the training program earlier that it needs to be started in order to complete a marathon. The marathon I'm planning on completing is the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. It's in October. I'm shooting for October 2008. Yes, if I followed the program, I could probably get myself in shape to run the MCM in October 2007. But to do that would be really difficult -- more difficult that I need it to be. So, instead of training for a marathon this year, I'm really training this year to train for a marathon next year. That's a lot more of a reasonable goal for me.

So, anyway. I'm looking forward to another thirty minute walk tomorrow morning.