First day training

In a push to stave off the cobwebs of my encroaching 40s, I have decided to pitch my will and strength against the might of the Tokyo marathon 2010, held on 28th Feb. Yes, 26 miles and 385 yards of excruciating pain and madness, to prove that I still have "it", whatever "it" may be.
So, today I started on the running program that my friend Joseph and I have decided to follow LINK
It seems reasonable, especially as the first day of training yesterday was a rest day, which gently segued us into what should be a memorable journey.
Anyways, enough blabber.
The aim of this bloggy is to keep a record of what I did to build up to the big event, and to detail the exercises I used to get me there. I'll also jot down my thoughts about how it feels to undertake this journey, and hopefully will be useful for any other aspiring mad people who want to do a marathon ; )

We're setting our finish time at 4 hours, which for a first marathon is ambitious, but we're both fairly fit and have been running now for some time.

So, today's training involved the following:
2 miles running at marathon goal pace
2 miles tempo pace (which means running about 30 seconds faster per mile than at goal pace)
2 miles at marathon pace again

The weather was very sunny, but quite chilly, and I chose a familiar course along the Meguro river.
It was pretty crowded with other runners, perhaps also starting their 16 week programs, which was a good energy boost.
I felt strong finishing, and made sure I did about ten minutes of stretching both before and after the run.
So, overall, a good start.