26.2

I am not sure exactly how it happened; something about getting lost and spooked by an unbelievable number of snakes made Stephanie and I decide we just had to sign up for a marathon. We were so determined, we signed up for the Top of Utah Marathon as soon as we found our way back to our cars in the late afternoon of Saturday May 31. Shyla got wind of it and, like the big copy-cat she is, has been tagging along ever since. Actually, if anything, Shyla is dragging us along. She is the only one who has been consistently getting up each morning for over a year to exercise so we are relying heavily on her discipline.

In planning our training schedule, we gave ourselves a crash-course in marathons relying almost entirely on runnersworld.com. It includes less running and more cross training than we expected but we are optimistic about it.

• Basically we do a running workout on Mondays. These used to be really easy but are quickly getting harder as we have started doing tempo runs and will soon do speed runs.
• Tuesdays are supposed to be elliptical training but I always sleep through that so of course I assume Shy and Steph are only pretending to go.
• Same for the Wednesday workout which is a spinning class that I went to once but got kicked out of for being late. So I am punishing the teacher each week by not showing up. (I am sure she is barely holding herself together in the face of my rejection.)
• Thursday is just an easy two-mile run.
• And Friday is the best of all because that is when we AQUA JOG. Aqua Jogging is a very sophisticated exercise where you go to a swimming pool with a big buoyant blue belt and jog in the water. We haven't totally refined it yet so right now it just a notch above just hanging out in a swimming pool wearing bouyant blue belts. But it is a fun break and the old men in the hot tub seem really entertained by our antics.
• Plus it prepares us for the long run on Saturday. We are increasing our mileage weekly until we get to 19 miles. YIKES. I am only assuming we will live because other people do.