For Father’s day, Christine and the kids bought me a custom training plan from McMillan Running.  This will be a 20 week training plan written just for me and my goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  And using my engineering ingenuity, I have deducted that the 20 weeks will start on July 19th.   Wow.  That is a mere 3 weeks from now!

Most of the people reading this site will find it hard to relate to what I am talking about.  Unless you have had a super aggressive personal trainer who pushed you on a daily basis or you have trained for a long distance endurance event with a structured training plan, you probably won’t see my fear.  Right now, I am training using the 1960′s “free love” method.  Wherever the wind blows me and whatever turns me on that day, I do.  And that works fine as long as you have no set goal or deadline.

With a structured plan, you wake up each day and read the plan.  And then after crying for a short while, you get to it.  Okay, in my usual fashion I am exaggerating a bit.  But not by much.  Most of the workouts, even the painful ones, I find a way to enjoy.  Some workouts I hate when I read them, hate when I start them, and usually hate the way I finish them.  But I always know I am working in the right direction.  And that is what I need right now.

So now I am ready to reverse course….again.  And hopefully this time it will be in the correct direction.