I thought it would be good if anyone who's actively training for a BQ could put down race dates and how they're training, if they wanted to. My BQ attempt will be just a bit over 6 months from now, at Pocono on 5/4/08. To train for it, I've mapped out a plan on my RA calendar. To summarize this plan, I'm gradually increasing my mileage from this year's present 20 miles-per-week average to 10 miles/day for five days a week, plus a run of 10-20 miles each weekend. I've got two informal 50K fun runs scheduled, one in late January and the other in late February. In the early spring, I'll put in weekly hill workouts and intervals, and then during the taper I'll do mostly short tempo runs.

Mine's a little sooner--Tucson Marathon on December 2. My training has not gone too well this fall and I'm just now starting to get in more consistency and more tempo/speed training. PR is 3:39 and I need 3:30 (8min/mile). Tucson's a fast course but 9 minutes is a lot and 8 min/mile is very hard for me. The good news is, I just ran a HM in 1:41:09, which is a PR and puts me in the ballpark, at least according to some of the online pace predictors. I ran a 3:49 marathon three weeks ago and felt pretty strong at the end, so I think I will focus on speed vs. endurance until then. So...my big runs coming up are, Chickamauga 10-miler on November 10 and Atlanta Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving day, both tempo runs @7:45, and Trent's Flying Monkey Marathon on the 18th for a long/hill run. Other than that, CONSISTENCY! That means good quality runs, 6 days/week, with plenty of strides and hillwork. Then there's my spastic right foot, which for the last 5-6 months has been really misbehaving, constantly clenching and dorsiflexing with each step whenever I walk or run. Really annoying, not a show-stopper so far, but it does affect my mechanics and can cause achilles tendon soreness at times. I've never heard of anything like this before but it's quite annoying and it is partly responsible for my lack of training in the last couple of months.

Planning to attempt to qualify at the Baystate Marathon in October. I just ran a 5k as a tuneup to a Half Marathon in Hyannis in late Feb. The 5k was a PR by about 50 seconds (19:44) and I'm hoping/expecting to run a new HM PR. My actual best is 1:46:24 2 years ago, but I went through 13.1 miles in 1:41:18 as part of a marathon last October. I hope to run around 1:35. About 5-6 weeks before my marathon I plan to run the 25k Run around the Cape on Sep 1. It has ton of hills and I plan to run it as a marathon pace run with a couple mile warmup and cool down. My HM is really a way to stay motivated through the winter months. I'll probably schedule a 5k or 10k in April or May to stay motivated the next couple of months. Training plan: I'm going to use the 55mil 24 week program by Pete Pftiziger (from Advanced Marathoning, which is GREAT). My plan will start the end of April. I'm using his HM plan from "Road Racing for Serious Runners" which is a great book too since it has plans for distances from 5k to the marathon and low, med and high mileage runners.