I started running more like my upcoming training will be next week, of course in preperation, by doing a 7-miler with 6x100m strides this morning before work. It felt pretty good, although my back is still getting stiff (remember, it doesn’t hurt, just stiff) around halfway through. I pushed my pace a little, which didn’t bother me, and finished fairly well. You can kind of consider this my first week of training, since i’d like to get as many weeks as I can in … I read yesterday that somewhere in the ‘Advanced Marathoning’ book, it says the 12/55 Pfitz plan is ‘cramming’ for the marathon .. I’m doing 14, well, now 15 weeks, so the more I can get in, the better I should do, but I have to take it easy.

I’m coming off doing some cross-training yesterday, and starting up with the weights again. I haven’t touched the weights since mid-September, so my arms, back and shoulders are killing me. I then finished that off with 35 minutes on the elliptical machine and then doing some stretching.

I’m wondering whether to take tomorrow off, or to just do simple cross-training … its a toss-up I guess. I should enjoy the non-running time I have now because in two weeks I’ll be running 5-6 days a week again and ramping up the miles … I guess it’ll be a morning decision since I will have to train before work again because I’m volunteering at a childrens Christmans party at lunch-time.