November 1st is the NEW new years

New Years resolutions are so…mainstream. This year, I’m trying something new: November 1st is the new January 1st. You still get to celebrate the night before (albeit in costume), it’s still cold out (for the most part), but in November, no one else has made a resolution to lose 10 pounds, so the gym isn’t packed to the gills for the following few weeks.

My resolution isn’t to lose 10 pounds; in fact if I could replace 10 pounds worth of dead weight with muscle, that would be awesome. My November 1st resolution is to officially start my marathon training. I started by running the Charlestown loop (2.8 miles), and it felt pretty good considering that I haven’t run since September 13th. I had a 10:40 pace which is slower than I’d like, but there’s 5.5 months to get that time up.

Here’s what’s ahead for the “new” year:
*buy new sneakers (sorry NB, loved working for you but turns out I’m an Asics kind of gal – but you can be sure I’ll be hitting up the factory store for some gear soon)
*join a gym (groan)
*exercise, in some variety, 5-6 days/week (2-3 of running, 2-3 at the gym, at least to start)
*build up miles and stamina so that I’m ready to begin team training in mid-December
*make sure all of my friends memorize our blog site so that they can check it frequently and share it with their friends
*come up with some very creative fundraising ideas, so that crossing the finish line is the 2nd accomplishment – raising funds for the Claudia Adams Barr program at DFCI being the first
*group runs – Amanda and I met some of our teammates at our kick-off meeting last week, and we can’t wait to hit the pavement with them!

I am officially off and running…