The other morning at a ridiculously early hour of the morning I tweeted

30 min into my run and I feel great. Running thru neighborhood I lived in as a teen when I wouldn’t dream of running more than a mile

That was about 2 miles in to my 7.5 mile run that morning. This Sunday I set a new personal distance record running 9.71 miles in 2:45.

It amazes me to be writing that.

I’m in training to run the Houston Marathon in January, two days after my 45th birthday.

I’m still using Maffetone’s heart rate zone for my running, but I’m getting a little frustrated with my performance. I’m SLOOOOOW. The longer I go the slower I get. I was well over 15 minute miles for that long run.

Now it is possible I’m much faster at distances shorter than that, but I don’t know for sure. If I’m faster for distances I’ve already run, then I’m still in trouble for the marathon. You have to finish in under 6 hours because they close the course then. To do that you have to average 13:45. And the training program I’m using never runs the actual marathon distance, so that race would be my longest distance.

Speaking of training systems, I’m using the KingwoodFit.com program. I joined and went to a few of the group runs and absolutely hated them. I was the slowest of the group that actually runs. By the time I finished all the provided snacks were gone, and the lecture was over. Plus it is discouraging to watch everyone else run away from you. So I do their runs, just on Sunday morning by myself rather than Saturday morning in the group.

Still it is three months away, so things may change. If they don’t I’ll just run the half marathon which gives you 4 hours to finish, 18 minute miles.