I have given myself 12 months to run a marathon (preferably attached to a fundraising effort) as well as to run a mile in under 5 minutes. I still have to come up with a time that will make the marathon goal a bigger challenge, though of course just finishing a marathon is a big achievement in itself. I’ve never run more than 10 miles… but I find myself enjoying running a lot more than I used to. Perhaps it’s the music and the GPS/heart-rate monitor gadgetry.

I was reading a bit about training methods, and keeping your target heart-rate in a very narrow zone. So when I ran today, for the first time I really paid close attention to varying my pace in order to keep the heart rate fairly steady. Interesting - lots more research for me to do here. Today was 5.47 miles at a relatively slow 9:13 per mile, or 50:27. I hadn’t had any chance to run for the past week while I was out of town, so it felt pretty good!