Recap: 16 weeks to go

Here's a quick recap if you're just tuning in.

Four weeks ago, at the beginning of June, I decided I wanted to complete a marathon and this time I would really do it. I checked the calendar for fall marathons in Europe. The Amsterdam marathon stood out for a bunch of reasons. It is the second Sunday of the fall school vacation in Aarhus, so my wife would have the week leading up to it off from her teaching job. Amsterdam is served by Sterling airline (a Danish discount airline) and we have vouchers for travel somewhere in Europe due to an earlier cancellation. We have some close Dutch friends to give us advice, and my wife has a cousin living in Amsterdam. (There are some drawbacks too. It's not as exotic as Rome, Athens, Venice, or Barcelona.)

I've seen Amsterdam listed as one of the top 10 marathons in the world. It is a big race, which can make the logistics interesting (I've heard to choose a smaller race for a first marathon). However, my uncle will be flying from Florida to run the race too. He's run somewhere around twenty marathons, some of them quite far from his home, so he should be a pro at the logistics.

After picking the race, I only had to train for it (in twenty weeks). I chose Hal Higdon's Intermediate I training program as a reasonable program. It's not a huge jump in difficulty from his novice programs (basically it lets you get one more 20 miler than the Novice II program; and it has a day of cross training instead of a rest day). The program is an 18 week program, so I quick ramped up over two weeks.

My goal for the race is really just to finish it. I've picked 4 hours as a target time, but only because the training program has "pace" runs run at marathon pace, so I had to pick something. I think if I get the distance in to complete the race, 4 hours is realistic.

Now, I've just finished week two of the program. There are sixteen weeks until the race. My long run is up to 9 miles, and my weekly mileage for the last week has reached just over 25 miles.