Alright, so I’m currently hoping to get into the NYC lottery to do my next marathon on 11/7/04. I’ve also filled out my race schedule up through the beginning of July. That would give me a little over four months to train up for the marathon, which should be fine. Checking the AustinFit yellow group schedule would have me doing about 20-22 miles per week at that point, with comfortable long runs of 8 miles, which is no problem - I’ll just jump onto the existing schedule at that point.

Once the regular AustinFIT season starts, I aim to be training with the green group (8:00) for Motorola ‘05. I’m only doing looking at the yellow schedule and pace (9:00 or so) for my fall marathon. That way, once the overlap starts, I’ll effectively have some free additional speed training leading up to it.

In order to hit a 4:00 fall marathon goal, I need to be running a 24:40 5K according to MarathonGuide’s predictor. I may be overly cocky, but I really don’t see that as a problem at this point. That’s an 8:00 mile for the 5K, and I’d need to be comfortable with that to join the faster AustinFit group anyway…

Of course, there’s always the question about what to do if, like a lot of people, I don’t get in to NY. I’m looking at Marathon2Marathon which is the polar opposite race, but it takes place on 10/16, or three weeks earlier. That means that I need to be able to jump onto the schedule at the 10 mile LSD point with about a 25 mile week. Again, I don’t think that will be a problem.

So my race plans are set! Next up is the Chuy’s 5K which I’ve heard is a pretty hilly course. Seeing how bad I’ve been lately about getting out and running, I don’t know how I’ll do on it. I’ll try to get in 2-3 hill runs between now and then to get me more used to them though. Either way, the upcoming season looks like a whole lot of fun.

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