5, 4, 3, 2, 1…… Lift off!  16 weeks to Portland.  I feel  disconnected,  distant.  I look at my calendar and negotiate.  I had earlier running schedules that started at 18 weeks but they came and went, a blur of summer festivities and wine and reasons to skip that fourth and fifth work out.  But now here i am, at the official 16 week on your mark, get set, ready, begin to commence to begin because you can’t get where you want to go if you don’t take that first step.  What I love about running is that you can if you do.  Maybe it is the architect in me that enjoys creating the road map to take me where I didn’t know that I could go.

I am convinced of three things this time.

Run longer.  I am going to increase my mileage week after week, until I hit something substantial and then I’ll stay there. Basically, I’ll be following the Runner World training guide with two of the five weekly runs combined into one of four because one back to back pair of workouts is enough for me.  OK, for now.

Swim more.  My cross training will be swimming, the magic bullet to my runners kinks.  I’ll learn how to flip turn and fantasize about trying a marathon swim.

Weigh less;  I want to see what happens if I loose a little bit of weight.  Not a lot but just enough to shave off a few minutes minutes of speed.  According to my calculations, I can loose eight minutes off my half with that gesture alone.

I ran a few beautiful trail runs, avoiding hills by walking.  My achiles is fine.  My excuses are up.  Time to run.