My Goal: I'm gonna run my marathon faster than Ben Gibbard and Flea!

I had originally thought I was going to post on android phone running apps, but it turns out that none of them really do all that well unless you want to shell out some money. And I don't. I will say that I have been using Time Runner Lite, and for my needs it works okay. The only problem is that it will occasionally drop the GPS signal and that messes with your distance and pace calculations. So if you're trying to do a distance only workout, as opposed to a time interval workout, this can be a problem. I have decided to do additional work in the app area.

So instead, I'm going to write about my marathon goal. Originally I had planned on trying to run the marathon fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but at a time of 3 hours 5 minutes, it seemed a little out of reach for a first time marathoner. And since I wanted to be proud of my time and not "just finish" (not that that's anything to scoff at), I started thinking of a time goal. Well my big sister/personal trainer sent me a link for a little motivation. It was how the lead singer for Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Gibbard, changed his health for the better by becoming a runner. Here it is; http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-544--14174-0,00.html

In the video attached to the article Ben says his goal was to run faster than Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So with a quick google search, I found out that Flea finished the marathon in 3:52:59. Toward the end of the article it states Ben's time was 3:56:34. So it hit me, I think I can do better than both of them! I know it seems silly, but thinking about out doing these to guys with considerably more resources than myself really gets me excited about the marathon even more than before. I'll never be a famous musician like either of these guys, but I could at least say I did this one thing better than both of them.

Well, I guess we'll see if I can do it! Hopefully it doesn't rain on me like it did on them. Also, here is a link to another Runner's World article, this time about Flea. http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-544--14174-0,00.html

Current Shoe Mileage: 20.8 mi

Coming up, the REAL work begins...