Friday, January 23, 2015

Making Left Hand Turns

January is the speed cycle in my training. Goal is to get some speed before cycling into marathon work by mid-February. So far so good.

I've run 3 hard workouts indoors, along with a set of tempo intervals on the outdoor. The results have been encouraging. First was 3x2k indoors. They were 6:27s, and felt good. I ran outside with 6xMile in 5:30 on short rest, followed by 4x200 (33s). Then mile reps in 5:05-5:08 (4xMile) indoors. Last was tonight going 6x1200 in 3:45-3:52. I struggled with 3, 4, and 5 before rallying on the 6th.

Speed work is the great unknown for marathoners. You know you need it, but really don't do it enough to know how far into the well you can go. The thought of running 6 sets of 75-76 second per 400is daunting when you rarely do it. The doubt crept in after rep 2 tonight- how  I going to do this?!

Ultimately it's left hand turns. You focus on the person in front of you, and I'm fortunate to have a great club with people to run with. Zone in and hang as long as you can- hopefully through the line.

Next race: 5k in February. Gotta get fast.

Monday, January 5, 2015

New Year, New Goals

Welcome to 2015! I rang in the New Year with a tidy 16:08 at my club's Resolution Run back on New Year's Day. It is the fastest outdoor time I've run in years, and fastest 5k since my indoor 5k time trial of 15:58 in March. I ran splits of 5:11, 5:11, 5:15, :31 (hunch is last 1.12 is off slightly, as 31 is... Super goal pace!).

Winter break is done, long gone actually. I amassed weeks of 74 and 86 during the two weeks off from teaching. What I didn't do was sleep enough, making me quite run down that first week back. Now the fun starts of balancing home, work, and run. 6am wake ups for 7:15am runs of a 90 minutes are done. It's back to squeezing in 60-75 minutes right after getting home (sometimes at that in between- not real easy, but not marathon pace). 

What are my goals and resolutions for the year?
Goal 1-A shiny new 5k PR. As far under 15:58 as I can go.
Goal 2- faster at 10k-1/2 marathon. Goes without saying, but they pale to the 5k. In my opinion, if the 5k goes the others will follow.
Goal 3- 2:29. Marathon. Next.

Resolution 1: Aim for 2 or fewer days off a month. Consistency breeds success. Rest can be days off, or can be days of easy miles.
Resolution 2: Core & strength work 3 times a week. It's the work I need to do for form, efficiency, but I often slack off in doing.
Resolution 3: write about running more often- 1x a week. Telling others what you did, and how it went is another mode of accountability.

What's next?