First marathon training (full training program: here )

We had a very cold morning, our hands were freezing. (For us everything under 50F considered as cold, freezing:-)) Wonderful clear sky, blinding rising sun. 6 k tempo run (9:25, 9:13, 9:01 min/mile pace). During the first 4 k I felt pain in my right feet, toes. Very annoying. Fortunately the pain went away, had an energetic last 2k. I remember how we were laughing at our son's answer when he was asked why he never runs 5k-10k races, only longer distances. "I do not even warm up in 5k". It seems we neither:-)) If we feel any pain, it is always during the first 5k, never during the last 5k.

From day one we have been aware that our legs are our biggest obsticles in this Marathon journey. From hundreds of articles, books I learned the naked true: if you are 40+, you can have the look, the skin, the face, the heart, the lung, the spirit of a twenty year old, but your LEGS are always (minimum) as old as you. You can not rejuvenate them, only age them. (For example every 20 pounds excess weight means 10+ years for your legs.) No, it does not mean that older runners are slower. Oh no! Check any race results - see the times of the 50+, 60+ crowd. But we have to be very careful...
When we started, we had more burdens than our age: DH had a previous knee injury, I had 35 lbs excess weight and a previous ankle injury. So we were really very cautious. Nevertheless, my legs, feets were in ice every other night for weeks. I experienced all the possible runner's pain. Then after three months, when we already could run 3 miles 5x/week - all these problems disappeared. Since April 1 we have not had any constant pain, injury.
But now I am a little concerned. 26 miles... Can our LEGS do it? We will see...

But back to our morning run. I had another problem: my otherwise excellent Polar heart rate monitor went crazy. Showing either 56% max heart rate or 113%. Hm... Was it frozen? A gadget from Suomi freezing in 48F? I know this sounds ridiculous, but I experience this problem only on cold mornings...

Back maintenance programme by Fielding, abs, stretching (background movie: Harry Potter)