Marathon training diary begins

I want to start logging my progress to ward the Paris marathon 2012. Training was going ok up until my recent trip to Perth Australia were beer and social time negatively affected my progress and weight ;).

My goal is to break 4 hours for my first marathon, based on my estimates in the Run Less Run Faster book that should be doable, however I need to ensure I stay injury free and get my weight down.

A recent 5km time was about 22mins so I am using that for my pace to work out training pace and planned marathon. I am sure I can do a 5 km faster, but not significantly faster, so for now this will do.

• Short Tempo Pace (ST) : 4:35m/km
• Medium Tempo Pace (MT) : 4:44m/km
• Long Tempo Pace (LT) : 4:53m/km
• Planned Marathon pace : 5:05m/km 

The Planned marathon pace sounds pretty aggressive but hey - I'll trust the system. Holding this pace will get me a very respectable 3:34:31. I only need to hold a 5:40 to break 4 hours so i have some leeway.

In an effort to clean up my diet I am going semi Paleo. Its only semi as I will be having some MRP shakes such as Lean Body and Myoplex as getting good inexpensive food near work is not super easy and temptation then becomes an issue. I will also be trying to limit my drinking till the race. this will be interesting as I have a close friends engagement party (who is also doing the race), my dads 60th and my own wedding and bucks do.... Luckily there will be other marathon participants at all of these events so other than the bucks do I should be able to control my self.

http://www2.furman.edu/sites/first/Pages/FirstTrainingPrograms.aspx

14 weeks left, so here we go!