by Martin Heflin

Created on: October 26, 2009

Running your first marathon is a physical, emotional and spiritual watershed in your life. I have been blessed to run five of them and have a couple more in mind. Before you undertake the endeavor make sure you can answer "yes!" to the following questions:

Have you had a physical recently? You need to let your doctor know you are planning on doing this and make sure your heart and physical structure are prepared to take this stress.

Do you have the ability to dedicate 4-6 hours of training per week to accomplish your goal? The centerpiece of your training will be the long run (more on that later), and you will have to be able to put in the hours on the road as well as having the time to recover.

Does your spouse/significant other support your effort? They need to understand that you will be gone for hours on one of the weekend days as your training progresses.

Have you run at least a 10K road race? You need to work up to running a marathon. It will be a much finer experience if you have some road racing time under your singlet.

Assuming you are still reading, because you have answered in the affirmative to the entry questions, let's take a look at the basics.

Equipment:

Shoes: Check you shoes! How many miles do you have on them? Examine the outer soles. Are there any unusual wear patterns that might mean you should explore getting orthotics? Believe me, you don't want to find out that you are an over-pronator at mile 10 of your long run.

Heart rate monitor/sports watch: I am a big believer in heart rate training and there are plenty of resources on the net to help you with that process. What I have found is that it prods me to go faster when I am dogging it, and it makes me slow down when I am pushing too hard. Once you become a student of your heart rate monitor you can even determine if you are over-training and even get a heads up on a potential sickness. At a minimum, a good sports watch is essential. I set mine with a 15-minute alarm when I am training; when it goes off, it reminds me to drink or eat.

Logbook: Gotta have it! Running a marathon is a semi-scientific process. You need to not only record your time and mileage (heart rate and calories if you are using a monitor) but you should also pay attention to your dietary and fluid intake. Keep track of what works and what doesn't and have a routine set so you are not in the experimental mode when you get to the start line of your first marathon.

Water belt: When you run your first marathon,

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