The BioMethod Health and Fitness

I have recently committed to running the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll half-marathon which is set for Sunday, January 18th, 2009. This gives me just enough time to prepare for the race despite being painfully out of shape. Fortunately for me, my wife, Wendy,  has been running for over a year and has completed several half-marathons and at least one full marathon. She made a commitment to get into shape and has finally convinced me to join her.

It’s difficult to imagine doing this, or even training for this, after being such a couch potato for so many years. I am lucky because I have a free personal trainer to guide me through all this. I tried running regularly about two years ago but stopped after experiencing serious knee pain about 30 days into my training regimen.

The Shoes

As it turns out it may have been my shoes. Wendy, the one year veteran, took me to a local specialty shop where they record you running on a treadmill and tell you what type of shoe you should select based upon this. Its quite cool because they play back the recorded video frames in slow motion, identify how your feet are landing and where the pressure points might be.

Based upon this information the running expert provided me with three pairs to try on and even allowed me to run while on the treadmill while wearing them. I tried three different pair and ended up with the Nike Air Zoom Vomero +3 . I must say that running with these is the equivalent of strapping cloud stuffed pillows stuffed to the bottom of your feet. Of course, this is based upon a limited trial comparison on a treadmill so it is a limited view.

According to Wendy the shoes can make or break how you feel during a long run and sometimes shoes that feel great in the store don’t do so well in the real world. I guess I will find out because next week I am starting to train.

Training Plan

Wendy went to runnersworld.com and customized a training regimen for me. Looks simple enough on week one with only two mile runs and a total of six for the week.

If I can run an 11 minute mile then it will only take 22 minutes to finish my training for the day. I don’t know how I will feel physically but looking at it as only 22 minutes it seems simple. The week before the marathon my long run is scheduled for 8 miles which will be 88 minutes or almost an hour and a half of non-stop running.

 What Next

Nutrition, diet and supplements. Oh, and personal experiences related to my training.