Cobwebs

The beginning of week 2 brought a return of 60 degree weather followed by icy rain and snow. I started my week off with a nice and easy 10 mile run in the cold and nasty. I love the 10 mile run for many reasons. The ten mile run can be treated as a nice and slow hour and a half long run, split into a warm up, tempo, cool down run, or broken down into a strong wave, or finish faster run. For this training cycle the 10 mile run will be the base of most of my training. I tend to enjoy picking a course with lots of post 5 mile hills and later in the season tend to attack the distance as a time trial. 17 weeks from now the easy 1 hour and 25 minute 10 miler will fade into the distance as my fitness improves and I attack with strong sub 1:10 training runs. It also is the perfect distance for the spring 10k runner who will later build up to a fall 1/2 marathon. blah blah blah...

Week One (Taking it slow)

For the past 3 training cycles I have found myself getting in peak shape weeks before my goal race. During my Chicago Marathon build up this turned out to be a fatal flaw, and weeks after I hit my peak I wound up breaking down, getting injured and racing from a place of weakness instead of from a place of readiness. These next 18 weeks will be crucial in my quest to figure out how my body works, and exactly how I should train myself for goal races. First off, I know I training too hard for too long. An 18 week cycle is too long of a time to be pushing yourself through 3 key workouts a week building mileage and speed without a break. I believe that I can sharpen myself into a racing machine in only 10 weeks from a good base. My marathon base from the Fall has been broken down by my weeks of time off and physical therapy. I have gained a couple pounds and am aerobically out of shape. My plan of action is to take these next 4-6 weeks to just get back into the groove of training. Instead of pushing myself from week 18 down to week 1 my plan is to simulate my training week for the next 4-6 weeks in order to ease my body back into training. My weekly long run will be long, but easy. My weekly mile repeats will be run at between 10k and Half marathon race pace. My easy recovery runs will be short and sweet. It is my hope that at about 12 weeks out from my goal race I can start turning up the volume and not burn myself out by my goal race. It is difficult to not go all out when training, but I have concluded that it is even more difficult to be injured and try to train while hobbling around for many week.

Mile Repeats

You can't beat the repeats. 3x1 mile at a little slower than my 10k pace with 5 minutes in between. Not so difficult but you just have to get over the idea of going too fast early on. I have 17 weeks to get my repeat times back down in the 5:40 range and am in no rush to force my body into shape. Tonight was all about getting the workout in and not hating the feeling of being this out of shape.

Getting back on my horse

Yesterday marked my first day back in training in many weeks. Having spent the last couple of months in physical therapy / recovery mode I am not willing to lose any more time to injury. My plan for the next 18 weeks is to be smart and slowly build up my strength and speed over a longer period of time. I have 18 weeks. I normally can get into fantastic shape in 10-12 weeks, so I am going to take advantage of the extra 6 weeks or so and focus on building a stronger base before launching into my exhausting schedule of intense training. My first major change in my training is going to be how I approach the long run. For the first phase (4-6 weeks) My long run of 10 - 12 miles is going to be more of a march. I tend to push too hard on my long runs. For this first phase in my training I will not be using the finish faster, or the middle mile tempo run that I have historically been doing on my long run. The long run for the next 6 weeks will be a simple easy 2-3 minutes slower than race pace run focused on just putting in some steady easy mileage. I am also going to slow down my mile repeats for the first 4 weeks to a pace that is just below half marathon pace / maybe 10k pace. The goal is to get my body re adjusted to my training schedule and slowly crank up the pace as my strength returns. I plan on using a tempo run of 6 miles, short sprints and hill repeats to round out my training. When the time comes I am going to push myself deeper into the interval and speed work, focusing on developing my 5k speed. My first race is in 10 weeks, and I plan on being sharp, fit, and fast by May. First things first, slow and easy.

18 Weeks to go.

As of tomorrow I start my training for my spring races. My main focus will be getting myself back into shape for the first 4-6 weeks while slowly turning up the intensity in the last 12 weeks of the cycle. I don't plan on running more than 40 miles a week during this cycle, but will focus more on my speed and the mechanics of running fast. I see lots of hills, mile repeats, and sprinting drills in my future. My goal is to start racing at the end of March and hopefully knock out a strong 10k in May. We will see.

2013 The New Me

I am 2 weeks away from being able to start training for my 2013 running season. After a month or so of physical therapy, I seem to have fixed a few of my nagging issues, and am almost ready to start training again. 2013 is going to be a little different than the last couple of years. I feel I have gained enough strength to start building my speed back up. My plan as of right now baring any pain, or future set backs is to train for and race a 5k every weekend from the middle of March until the middle of June. My goal race for the spring is the Riverbank 10k, but I am going to try to go off of more raw speed training than the long and slow strength based work that I have done in the last few winters into spring. I am finding that I am too worn out by the time I get to July. This year I am going to build speed until the middle of June, take a couple weeks off and then switch gears for my end of year event which will be the Grand Rapids Half Marathon. No marathon for me in 2013, I will revisit my marathon goals for 2014 if I can stay healthy all year. Sounds like a plan.

5k

I have taken off a couple weeks to heal and do some physical therapy. Today I joined a fun community 5k and allowed myself to push it for 1 mile of the run. Its amazing how out of shape you can get in a couple of weeks. the good news is I am starting to feel much better. My hips are relaxed and I had no pain while running. I am going to ease in to this week enjoy 3 full days of physical therapy and start training again next weekend. Excited to start again.