Let’s get it started

I have decided to embark on a new training program and run the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon on March 18th. I  was planning to start in Jan, but I figured why not start now? It’s for the best to start now, since Christmas and New Year’s may interject in the training plan.

I really want to make a good faith effort to (really) improve on my sub par performance in the NYC Marathon. Since two major stressful situations, working at a crappy job and searching for jobs to replace the crappy job, have been extracted from my life (. . . for the most part), I think that I can fully concentrate on doing my best for this half-marathon.

What’s in a goal?

I ran this half-marathon two years ago and did really well for myself. I would like to improve on my previous experience and run a sub 1:45 half-marathon. This goal may be a little tricky, because this Half has a brand new course (insert cheer here), which is not as flat as the previous course. What the point of doing something if there is no challenge?

I found this Iron Man sub 1:45 half-marathon training plan that I have started. Monday is an off/X-training day, so I did start it 😉 With five days of running, the plan is a little aggressive . . . for me. That said, I will try to consistently run 4 days a week with this plan, because I do not want to screw up my back training for this thing. The funny thing is I had to defer last year’s United Half to  2018, because I screwed up my back.

Although the plan maybe aggressive for me, I think that I’m coming into this training plan off of a good base. I just “ran” the NYC marathon last month and I had a nice 15 K race this past weekend. Hopefully, I have a good enough distance base to start improving on my speed. Also, I do not have too many weekend commitments planned, so I can actually do my long runs.

Scheduling this crap:

Based on a suggestion from another blogger (***), I decided to import this training plan into my Google Calendar app, so I always will know what’s planned and can make any modifications to the running schedule. I might as well go with this suggestion, because I pretty much live and breath using online calendars for my current job.

Tech Question:

New Fitbit or Apple Watch?

My current Fitbit Surge is beginning to fall apart, so I’m in the market for a new fitness watch. I really have been contemplating moving to the “dark side” and purchasing an Apple Watch. Eventually, this (idea) was bound to happen – I have an iPhone, Mac book, iPad (first generation), and Apple TV. The price really is the only thing stopping me, because I do not know if I feel comfortable paying so much money for a device. That said, I really have not had any serious issues with Fitbit’s products, so I would not mind getting another Fitbit product. I have loved using the Fitbit Surge for measuring my physical activities over the past few years. Decisions, decisions, decisions.