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Total mileage: 1269.4
Total time: 190:52:59 (7 days, 22 hours, 52 minutes, and 59 seconds)

2008 running mileage by month

Not bad! 267 more miles than last year.

This week, I start my official marathon training plan to prepare for Boston. I changed my mind and am using a plan from Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas’s book Advanced Marathoning. This plan is 18 weeks instead of 16 weeks like the Runner’s World plan, so I’m starting today instead of on December 29. This plan peaks at 55 miles per week and includes some scary workouts, like running 14 miles of a 17-mile long run at marathon pace. However, with the amount I’ve been running lately, I feel confident in my ability to up the mileage and intensity without getting hurt.

I’ve been doing a lot of my runs with the Tufts marathon team lately. I’ve even started to drag myself out of bed for the 7 am Wednesday runs. I’ve found a nice group of people to run with, and it’s been fun to push the pace with them on some of the runs. Yesterday I did 7.5 miles at 7:39 pace, which is the fastest I’ve ever run that long a distance. I never would have pushed that hard if I hadn’t been trying to stay with a couple of my new friends.

The Tufts group is pretty fast. I get the impression that most people who do these group runs have more running talent than I, but I make up for my lack of talent by running more mileage. I’m the Brian Sell of this running group.

Anyway, I’m having fun with my marathon training so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing how my body handles this Pfitzinger training plan.