"Cotton is Rotten" and about our training

Saturday's run went really well - maintained about a 10:45 pace for three out of the four miles or so. I really need an interval watch so that I can start training these longer runs with a 6:2 run/walk interval. Fortunately, watches that have intervals are pretty cheap, I'm told - $30-40.

You might be wondering why our mileage is starting out fairly low while training. Our head running coach, Jan, addressed this question before our team run on Saturday. Team In Training's program is longer than the average marathon training program, apparently - about 4.5-5 months, or 18 weeks (longer for other TNT events that are scheduled later in October.) Team In Training does this for a couple of reasons. First - and I find this incredible every time - over eighty percent of Team In Training participants have never trained for an endurance event before (like me - whew!). That extra time allows beginners (like me) to get the solid mileage base that they'll need when we're eventually training at 10, 15, and ultimately 20 miles on our long training runs. Secondly, 14 weeks would leave far less time for the fundraising that Team In Training members commit to.

I think I mentioned the sordid tale of my feet. Though it doesn't hurt, the bottom of my left foot has blistered pretty badly, about halfway across my foot right below the toes. I knew that "cotton is rotten" when it comes to running clothes (cotton soaks up moisture and leaves it close to your skin, causing chafing) but it never occurred to me to apply that theory to my socks. Well, duh.

In any case, I made my first trip ever to a running store - Run N Fun, on Randolph and Victoria in St. Paul - and got my first bunch of running socks (the ones I got are foot-specific - one for the right foot, one for the left - crazy!) and bodyglide, that ubiquitous stick of anti-chafing stuff that looks like deoderant. Run N Fun staff actually did our gear training clinic, and are really great about giving discounts if you belong to a running club. Very friendly staff - I didn't feel intimidated. Highly recommended.

Alright, enough from me today. Onward!