It is dark, and yes it is winter. The snow storm is here. My power flickers delicately as I type this up, Joe, me and Danielle are just hoping it holds out...
But the sun will also rise...
The day after the race I felt remarkably good, in fact, I felt good enough to get in 20 miles Sunday. Ran 66 miles last week. I have been getting so used to running 2-2.5 hours every Sunday regularly now, it is becoming second nature. I think this Sunday though I will do at most 17-18. This week is definitely a bit of a recovery week and I have made sure to recover from a monster 5000m PR. I took Monday off. I am very happy with my first race of 2011 and am looking foward to the new year. I do want to make another assault on the 5k and I found another great opportunity in the middle of May in a college outdoor track meet called the Swarthmore Invite, PA Outdoor Track Last Chance Meet. I don't see it worthwhile in "rushing" another 5k right now, especially since I probably wouldn't improve much right now and am preparing for my assault race in March: the Shamrock Half Marathon. I have less than 8 weeks to prepare for one of my favorite events, have a solid base, and need to ramp up the LT/Tempo Workouts. So other than coaching, I will probably stay away from the track and stick to the roads/canal for the most part, although I could very well see myself doing some 1600m repeats again-which will be good for my speed in the half. I'll feel it out.
So the next stage begins with the Shamrock Half Marathon on March 20, followed by Cherry Blossom 2 weeks later, followed by Pikes Peek 2 weeks after that. Then, I will have a month to prepare for the Swarthmore Invite 5K. So I will be gradually going down in distance and turning up the speed.
The goal I am shooting for I feel should be 5:20 pace(give or take) for the half, or slightly faster. This should be feasible if I can run 4:57 pace for 5K. 1:10:00 is the target, and actually, 5:20 pace is technically 1:09:55. I need to do some solid tempos at 5:20 or faster. I love tempos. Track is more work to me, but tempos just feel so natural for my body. I'm sure as you can tell, I am excited to do these workouts in the next few weeks. I will carry this fitness over to Cherry Blossom, and start fine tuning my speed from that point on.
May 16 will be the last race of my spring season, then I will take a vacation to Naples with Beth's family, and write up a Fall Training Plan for some sort of race...I really do not know what I want to do for the fall...but I'm sure that decision will come when it is time.
Excellent blog, good to see someone is posting quality information. Thanks for sharing this useful information. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeletehalf marathon training plan