I've never run a marathon before and I'm incredibly excited to say that I've just signed up to run my first marathon this October in Minneapolis, MN. I thought about running the Chicago marathon this fall, but the first half of the course was identical to the Rock N' Roll half marathon I ran last summer in Chicago and the remainder of the course was not very interesting. I didn't want that to be my first marathon experience. My next thought was to look into a marathon in Minneapolis, since we have tons of family and friends there. When I saw that this marathon is in October, I couldn't stop thinking about having my first marathon experience to be "the most beautiful urban marathon in America". I gave myself a couple of weeks to feel really confident in my decision, and I'm excited to say that I'm officially pumped for this!!
Here's a map of the 2009 course, which looks to be the same as the 2011 course:
In other news, I ran my first outdoor run since last October today. I just couldn't resist the partly cloudy 35 degree weather. I ran one of my favorite routes, north through downtown, through Old Town, and then along the paths through Lincoln Park and back home - a total of 6 miles. It's a good thing I stayed in shape all winter using the treadmill! I was so happy that I felt great throughout the whole run! The only thing was that my knees hurt when I got home and was stretching. I guess my knees got used to the slight cushion of the treadmill instead of the pavement pounding every day. I'll have to ease back into running outside while the weather continues to warm up.
Do any of my fellow marathon runner's have any tips or advice for training?? I'm going to be using one of Hal Higdon's training programs, but I haven't chosen the specific on yet.
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