First Day of Training!

Today was the first day of training with Team in Training for the marathon to kick off 18 weeks of training. It was such a pleasure to meet up with the Central team (about 100 people?), which is only one team out of three- there is also a North team and the South team in San Diego...so nice to see the support for Team in Training!

I'm always amazed how incredibly friendly people are in San Diego, and how happy they are to live here. It was also so nice to see how happy people in Team in Training are to be doing the program- so meeting up at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to start the run was like being in Disneyland, everyone was sooooo thrilled to be there! Yippee, horray, we're training for a marathon! There was so much pride in what we are doing, all the alumni were wearing Team in Training t-shirts and jackets and showing off pins saying how many marathons they did...I would have to say there were about 60% alumni there! There were also about 15 mentors, four coaches, two assistant coaches...with signs and cameras and all these yay rah things that I never would have thought of, like signs along the running route saying all these facts about leukemia and why we are doing it.

Learned some new stretches for my shins today, which were very helpful! Partnered up with someone to hold each other up and first:
1. Went up on our tip toes facing forward
2. Went up on our heels facing forward
3. Had our heels close by with toes facing out and up on tip toes
4. Our heels close by with toes facing out and up on heels
5. Our toes close together with heels out and up on toes
6. Our toes close together with heels out and up on heels
I was also told that as a new (well, returning) runner that shin splints are very common, and it's best to roll a tennis ball under my foot to prevent/ help heal shin splints. Also, if you rub your arch, it helps it as well.

I went with the A group, the beginners group, to do 3.1 miles, running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute. Felt pretty great the first mile and a half, then felt like I was going to puke. So I ran 1 minute then walked 3 minutes (okay, that's being generous) until the end. The picture doesn't really capture my beet red face, but I was happy to be done!

I'm now limping a little bit and my legs feel like lead and I've been SOOO tired all day long. This is going to be a LONG process and hard on my body and I'm starting to wonder why I didn't do the century ride for Team in Training? It's very different to train for a marathon when I'm almost 40 then when I was in my 20s...enough complaining, I've got to get up early to do a 40 minutes jog tomorrow!