Hello, my name is Jon and I am an aspiring distance runner.

Ellie and I decided that we are going to start gearing up for our first half marathon. It is on our yearly bucket list, and with a couple of my family members planning on doing the B.A.A Half in October, I decided it was time to start working towards that goal.

I did all the typical things when first starting to pursue an idea. I typed in "Half Marathon Training Program" into google, and got about three million results. Ok cool, plenty of options at least. There is every type of plan imaginable.  A Run - Walk Couch to Half Marathon program, a beginner, intermediate, advanced, Kenyan, Ethiopian and who knows how many other variations on workouts to get a person up to that 13.1 mile marker. Sorting through them took literally hours.

It took me about a week to settle onto one specific program that I felt would be a decent one. It includes four days of running a week. An easy run, a tempo run, a speed run and a long weekend distance run. It starts for 3 mile distance runs, and then increases pretty quickly up to the 6 mile mark and builds from there. This I felt was something Ellie and I could realistically work towards. I downloaded the PDFs, taped them to the door when we first walk in our house and was all set to go.

I think it is important to stop my story here for a second, and let everyone know I was out running this past weekend in the park on 4-20-2012, and my lungs didn't appreciate the cloud of pot smoke that was sitting nicely in the air. My Achilles and tendons in my foot also didn't appreciate my sudden fondness for  steep hills either. The combination has left me extremely sore and unable to do more than a mile without a ton of pain.

So about this training program, I thought it would be a great idea to dive right into week one this past Monday, despite my extremely sore foot. Needless to say, after being on the program for the week, I haven't completed a single requirement yet, though Ellie has been doing great.

The point of this post, is to just comment on how difficult I've found getting into the program has been. We've pushed it off a week at the start, and now I am asking Ellie to push it off until this coming Monday again so I can be fully recovered and good to go. On the bright side, we have way, way more than twelve weeks until October, so we have time. The bad news is delaying the start is frustrating, because both of us are ready to go . . . at least mentally.

Out of curiosity, what are some of the things you've found when sticking to a more rigid schedule? Is it tough to just start one and follow it? I know there has to be some degree of flexibility, but how much is too much?

P.S: Yesterday I openly invited people to join in on the fun here at 2FNs, If you are wanting to get involved post a comment! We are looking for more people to join in!