First run in 3 weeks.

I've had a brutal couple of weeks trying to get my wheels on. I've been thinking about running every day, but the final spur never quite arrived.

Part of the problem is that I haven't had a goal for several months.  The last two Septembers, I've had motivation in the form of Imogene.  I knew I'd be running Imogene in 2009 in September of 2008. I knew I'd be running Imogene in 2010 somewhere in the middle of mile 6 of Imogene in 2009.  I had Imogene on my calendar, for the remainder of 2010, but somewhere in February that turned into wishful thinking.  It's back on the schedule for 2012, but this year - nope.

What finally got me out the gate today?  I believe I've got a race to train for.

• Round trips from Santa Cruz to Miami aren't too unreasonable.  So this past Sunday, I was looking for a marathon in Florida to get something on the schedule.  
• Pensacola to the rescue.  November 13.  
• A perfect 23 week training cycle too, 3 months of base training, 2 months to build intensity, 2 weeks to peak, and 1 week to race.  
• I'm going to try to shatter my "PR".  

I ran the Steamboat Marathon in 3:33.06.  That race is run at elevation and is more often downhill than up, but there is quite the lump at mile 23 which absolutely killed me.  It took 5 (or more) minutes out of my time had the road merely stayed flat.

Since I've been in Bolivia, a litany of things have resulted in my dropping a very large chunk of my gut.  I think I have lost 30 lbs relative to what I weighed when I ran Steamboat.  Unfortunately I don't have a scale so that's just a guess at this point.  With the weight loss, good preparation and me going down instead of up to race, I think I can take 20+ minutes out of my time.  Can I go under 3 hours?  There's a question to monitor...

Anyway today was the first day of my training program.  Since I haven't run in weeks I decided to peg the speedometer at 8:30 and not pay attention to my HR.  I did wear my monitor and saw 198 BPM at one point but with 3 weeks off that's really not surprising.  I ran for 45 minutes and averaged 8:34/mile total distance?  You do the math, I don't want to turn on my Garmin.  Next week I'll start being a slave to it again and in 2 more weeks I'll check the number I'm using to estimate my lactate threshold.

Anyway, I'll soon have a financial incentive to head out the door every day.  That's a powerful motivator.
Thanks for reading.
J