Here we go again...

26.2 miles...  This time with a more experienced perspective, a fresh training approach and an entirely different view. 

For our first marathon we totally shot ourselves in the foot by planning a big vacation during the last three weeks of training.  Might not have been our most brilliant decision for timing things.  So this time around no vacations until after the race.

Last time we thought that we would find running the marathon through our home city streets inspiring... but we ended up not being able to hit our stride with all of the elbows we were catching.  So we are going from a 35k-40k person race to one that caps at 10k.  And the scenery from the 12 parks we will run through will be fantastic.  During our last training I definitely learned a bit about myself and that included that I do not like to be crowded during runs and I find nature a more inspiring background than skyscrapers for a long run.

We are doing a totally different training plan.  More on that to come but it includes a lot more cross training, tempo runs will become our friend and we will do two 20 milers before race day.  I am pretty excited about this new plan - it looks promising.

Our goal is to finish in under four hours.  We absolutely can make that if we stay injury free and stick to the plan in the final three weeks. 

And it looks like the plague of a cold we caught at the holidays will be over with the training kick off.