I am officially registered in the Sundown Marathon 2010. Whheeewwww!!!! Not for a 42 kilometer run. I'm not ready for that. I registered for the half-marathon. And even for that, the 5 months of running I've had might not be enough. Yes, I am scared. But I've always been scared whenever we venture into a longer than normal run. The initial fear makes the run special.

According to the McMillan Running Calculator--even though I haven't run as far as 21 kilometers ever--if I do, I'll be able to finish in 2 hours and 48 minutes (and 16 seconds). I could hardly believe that. I hope they didn't just get my speed and use that to see how fast I'd be able to run my 21km. They are supposed to calculate my finish time while considering my definite slow down because of the distance.

I scoured the internet for a training guide. To date, we've got just a couple days over a hundred before the big day. 29-5-2010. That's not much time. Things have to go serious. I found the training guide that best suites me. The ULTIMATE HALF-MARATHON TRAINING PLAN from Runners World Online. It has profiles for all sorts of runners, from beginners to seasoned runners.

It's a nine week program. Rest days already scheduled in.

The only pre-requisite for 21km runners is weekly mileage of 30 miles. I could work my way up to that. And I'm gonna have to follow the nine week schedule exactly. This is a make or break thing.

The strict and detailed regiment is important for a beginner like me. I've no one to tell me when I'm over training or when I'm being too soft on my self. I remember when I had someone training me in weight lifting. He would give instructions, tell me which exercises to do. I would always respond with how heavy should I carry? The reply I would always get is whatever it is you are comfortable with. How I wish I know the answer to that question.

In the training routine from runners world, it'll be easy for you to judge which profile you belong to. All you need to do is check your weekly mileage and how long have you been running. Once you've done that, you'll see that for every profile, they have training routines that would allow the runner to have the best possible run he could have come race day. They've got speed workouts and endurance workouts. For advance runners, they have all sorts of different workouts that train speed, pace, endurance and I don't know what else. In other routines in the net, I've seen Striders, Tempo Runs, Lactate Level Runs and etc...

Personally, I love the new jargon. Especially so because they could all be related to something all runners and non-runners have alike--LIFE.