Week 1: Begin to Panic

Having never run a marathon, I decided on a dubious approach to developing a training plan — I totally made one up from scratch on the fly.

Granted, I had an old half marathon training plan as a loose model. And I had the experience of my pal Keith as a guide. He peaked at a long run of 20 miles before resting up for race day. And I checked my plan against a couple floating around the Internet.

But I seem to have mistakenly figured only 16 weeks of training, whereas other plans suggest 18 or 20 weeks. Gulp! And is one long run of 20 miles enough preparation for the ordeal of 26.2 miles on Nov. 2? Double gulp!!

Well, it's too late to change some things. I can't go back and get in better pre-training shape. I can't go back and reverse the last few weeks of slackened physical activity. And I can't go back and add a couple weeks onto my training plan, unless I want to run the NYC Marathon two weeks late. (Which, no kidding, was roughly the scenario of a bizarre dream I had a few days ago.)

Most I can do is stick with the plan, which leaves me very little room for error. The training officially kicks off Wednesday with an easy four-miler in Central Park.