Subcutaneous Phat

Another marathon season, another marathon training program. My experiment with the Pfitzinger 18 week/55 miles per week program didn't work out so well for me this spring because I ended up overtraining and suffering an Achilles' injury. I managed to recover and finish the Vermont City Marathon in May, but I didn't feel as prepared as I could have been because I had to take a few weeks off in the middle of my training. So this time around, I'm going in the other direction and trying the FIRST marathon training program from Furman University, which calls for three runs per week and cross-training on the other days. The idea is that you make the most of your runs, emphasizing speedwork and pacing. Runner's World featured it last summer and I figured I'd give it a shot, starting today with a 13-mile long run. I've been doing 10-milers the last several weekends, so it won't be too much of a jump. I was doing speedwork during my Vermont training, so I know what to expect there. The main difference is I'll have to run my long runs a little faster than before. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Droppin' some knowledge:

• Nice to see that the legislators in New Jersey finally got their act together and ended a weeklong government shutdown, especially since we're heading down there for vacation starting next Friday. Not that we're going to take in a lot of casino action, but we'll be in or near Atlantic City most of the time, so it'll be nice to have things open. Now we just have to hope for good weather.
• As we head into the All-Star break, the Blue Jays are playing some bad baseball, getting spanked the last two nights by the lowly Kansas City Royals. Not good, because the Red Sox and Yankees keep winning. It may be another third-place season for Toronto after all, unless they can wake the hell up.
• No shocker, but U.S. album sales are down while sales of downloaded music are up. Most of the downloads are of singles or individual tracks, further illustrating our short-attention span culture. But let's face it, a lot of the artists populating the top 40 these days aren't focused on making good albums, but good singles. It's like the '60s all over again, when a band would have two or three singles and then a bunch of filler on the rest of the album.