Welcome to "My First Marathon"

I started this site to log my personal progress as I begin preparing for my first marathon. For the last few years, I have had a goal of running a marathon, but it has never gotten beyond the wishful thinking stage. I am a beginner runner, so I am pretty much starting off at square one with this whole thing. I try to run on the treadmill at the gym every now and then to help stay in shape, but I usually never last more than 20 minutes of straight running...and even then, it's pretty slow.

So my goal is to run in and complete the Akron Marathon on October 1, 2005. As my training guide, I will be using The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer. It was written by a couple college professors who teach a course at Northern Iowa University, which basically teaches the students the physical and mental things they need to do and know to be ready for the marathon. And all but 1 of their students was able to complete it by the end of the course, and many of the students were first-time runners. So, I have a 174 days to prepare.

This afternoon, I went to the gym, walked for 5 minutes, then ran for 20 minutes straight at a 6mph pace, then walked for another 25 minutes, and then ran another 5 minutes at a 6mph pace. I then walked around the hall for about 10 minutes to cool down. I weighed in at 172.5.