01] jen booked a room @ LOEWS in santa monica where we're staying for the first part of the trip [closer to the action + near the finish line], before heading down to the beach house in hermosa beach to unwind a bit post-race. already working on a list of restaurants + shops we're going to hit while we're down there- can't wait.
02] NEW SHOES! not a big deal to most people, but to marathon runners switching shoe brands is usually quite a deal [what a dork]- justifiable when considering how much time and suffering you go through with them- so! after 5 years of loyalty to asics, i shed the stability control and went with the lighter [mizuno wave rider 12's], and... so far so good!
03] finally dusted off my old garmin forerunner to start timing my runs in an attempt to pressure me into shaving of some unwanted minutes from my runs. sadly i averaged ~30 seconds slower per mile than last year, and ~1.5 minutes slower per mile than a couple years ago.
ALTHOUGH... i suppose that's a bit of apples and oranges considering how much hillier this area is than the beach trails in cali. i did manage a 37. 39 5-miler on the treadmill last week, so hopefully i'm a bit closer to my peak than garmin suggests.
on the bright side, with such slow times, i'm really looking forward to my times plummeting over the next ~4 months of training. here was today's out-and-back route...
04] and last but not least- my brand-new custom marathon training schedule! i'm sure i'll be doing a bit of tinkering with it after seeing how my legs respond to the mileage, but here it is so far: [2010 LA MARATHON TRAINING SCHEDULE]
... that's it for now!, patenaude
