Sometime around February I started to question a few things about myself and my running. Now, I know that I am far from an elite athlete, but I do know that I have not even scraped the surface of my potential as a runner. I know that I will never string together sub 5 minute miles for 13 miles or sub 6 minute miles for that matter, but the question of what is my potential burns inside of me. My original goal or shall we say question was this.. What would happen if you took a slightly above average, quickly approaching 40 year old runner and trained him like he was an elite athlete?
Now that I am successfully surviving my first mileage build up in 20 years, I think that I am ready to commit to this project. In the beginning, I thought that running more than 50 miles a week would destroy my body. Running 30 mile weeks made my bones ache, so logically running more would hurt me even more. Not the case. I think what I have found out in the over 40 mpw land is that you really can not make the mistake of going out hard on a workout without being warmed up properly. The same is true for the tail end of a run as well.. Every run needs a cool down. Period. Just adding the warm up and the cool down to my training routine has made me more flexible, more confident in my health as a runner and frankly has added a few extra easy miles to my weeks total. Not a bad trade off at all.
Now, I will be honest with you... I do not think that I will ever run a 140 miles a week. I think that my goal for the rest of this year is this.. Continue to train for the half marathon as planned, build up to a near 60 miles per week before the taper just to see how it feels.. Taper, run the half as planned, and then evaluate the results, and revise the training plan as needed. I think that a realistic goal, barring a hellish winter will be to focus all my efforts on the River Bank Run 25k in May of 2011.. Sounds like a plan. So, with that said... Keep on keeping on... For now.
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