I’m pumped (and well maybe a little reluctant) for my new project. Forty on forty.

The concept is simple. I’m turning 40 this May, and I thought what better way to celebrate than to run a marathon. A marathon you say. That’s not so bad, people run them all the time. In fact I’m sure some of you reading this are thinking, I just ran one. And you would be right, it isn’t so bad for many, and people do run them all the time. They are called runners. I on the other hand am not one of those people. I have done some running, years ago. And those days of maintaining any sort of distance runs are long behind me. In short, I am starting from scratch.

This project is to try to capture the process of going from zero to marathon status over 16 weeks. All the glory. All the bullshit that is marathon training.

Forty on forty? What’s that about? Well Forty being the age, and forty (ish) kilometers being the distance. Technically 42.2kms. And if we are being completely honest, the intended date for the marathon itself, lands 3 days after my 40th birthday. So officially it could be called 42.2 on 40 + 3 days, but that just starts sounding like a math problem. I digress.

I’m starting to remember my time running years ago. When I had the opportunity to recover from long runs, put my feet up and chow back half a pizza and call it a day. Ah the glory days. Now with a four year old running around me at home, I don’t envision telling him I’m gonna take a “personal day” is going to fly.

So here we are. February 1st, day one. I have carefully put together my training schedule, which was basically reviewing about 5-6 different training options online and picking the one that was most designed for “beginners”. I’m good with that. I have no shame in being a beginner again.

Shit… I still have to run for the next 16 weeks.

Cheers.