Marathon training is still going well. I've been running now for 4 weeks. I've broken training into two phases. The first phase is a regular program to increase my speed and constitution. I run 3 times a week. The first and third run are 30 minutes long, on teh treadmill at the gym. The second run is 45 minutes long. Each week I increase the speed by 1/10 MPH. I started at 4.6 MPH, and this last week I ran all three runs at 4.9 MPH. The best part to me was that I was able to run them with relative ease. I didn't have to struggle to keep pace, didn't have to mentally push myself too hard. It was an agressive run, but not hard mentally. Tomorrow I run the speed up to 5.0 MPH. A 12-minute mile. I'm looking forward to this.

The second phase will follow exactly the schedule laid out in The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer It's a four month program that ends with the marathon itself. I'll begin this program in September, and this will lead right into the Disney Marathon in january.

Big news in the last few days. Mike has made some amazing progress with his occupational therapy. The boy is walking like a champ, and has proclaimed his first word, "Daddy". Not Dad, not Dada, but Daddy. It's remarkably cute. Denise and Mike have a new game where she will try to say Mommy, and he'll cheerfully chirp out a Daddy. And he'll happily walk around the house, pushing walkers and that Fisher Price popper dome toy that we all had growing up. He's looking more and more like a little boy each day.

It's been almost two weeks, but this Sunday I get tospend the day with my family. Nothing but Denise and Mike. Yippee. I started out playing with Mike and his poo. Mike has the recent habit of making a large poop overnight, and when he wakes in the morning, gets bored and decides to play with his new found poo. It's fun for him, but it does make a bit of a mess.

What to do? Carry him bodily into the shower for his daily bath. One shower later, Dad and son were squeeky clean and smelling of things other than poop.

Breakfast was had downtown near USf at a place called Bagels plus. Mike has recently discovered that he really likes bacon. So we ordered him a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich, and proceeded to give him a bit of the bacon to start. Once he got a taste of the salty meat, he wouldn't eat the rest of the sandwich. Pushed the egg away and waited for more bacon. However, we found that if we covered the sandwich with a napkin, he couldn't see the bacon any longer. Within seconds, the bacon was out of mind, and he proceeded to eat the rest of the sandwich.

After breakfast we went to Lettuce Lake Park for a nice walk and some playground time. I broke out my favorite rubber Disney football, and played catch with Denise and Mike. Catch with Denise is pretty straightforward. Catch with Mike involves me tossing the ball into his lap while he is in the stroller, then taking the ball from him just before he throws it out of the stroller. Much laughter and giggling followed each throw.

Mike is progressing slowly with his walking. He seems to be enjoying it more, taking the initiative to walk himself more often, rather than us forcing him to stand. He's made as many as twelve lumbering steps on his own, and we keep cheering him on. He took a few of those steps in the playground, but managed to trip himself and took a small scrape on the chin. Nothing serious, just the first of many tumbles the boy will take growing up.

After that, go home, take a nap, go to Spring Hill for dinner with Denises folks, yada yada yada. The thing worth mentioning about dinner is how well Mike took to walking around their house. He was walking to grandma and grandpa with a rather firm determination. It's almost as if he was trying to impress them.

Well, the site has mostly been moved. The code and the database now happily reside on Dreamhost servers. Some more clean up and I'll have wedding and baby back online. I might even start a new marathon journal to keep track of the training over the next year.

I suppose that there is no time like the present to begin training for the Annual Disney marathon. I'm not foolish enough to try a 26.2 mile run any time soon, but the half-marathon sounds right up my alley. This time next year, I'll be up at 4am with 26,000 of my closest friends to watch fireworks replace the starting gun, and jog around some of the most interesting 13.2 miles in existance, the Disney stage and backstage.

http://miceage.com/kevinyee/ky011105a.htm

Update : I got a couple of books used from Amazon that offer a training schedule for novice runners. By training schedule, I mean a complete breakdown of what you should be doing each day for 17 weeks. By novice, I mean a person who hasn't run a 1/4 mile in probably 5 years. Stairs, no problem, tread wall, I'm good for 500 feet, but running. Hah!.

I'm the kind of person who benefits greatly from a regimented schedule. Having a day by day schedule gives me at least a fighting chance of working up to 13.2 miles. That and my iPod and a few audio books. I also picked up a book on stretching, to help strengthen my repitoire of limbering moves. It's good to have a goal, even if it's not a New Years Resolution.