So, many of you know that I spend most of last year with an injury that made my running almost non-existant for most of the year. And it showed in my run results. I took the time to get healed and have a good off season. I am now determined to have a good running year. So after my break I started with a running block -- starting on Dec 1 and it will be ending with a half marathon I will be running on Feb 15th. I am determined to be able to feel like I really am a runner by then.
There are a couple of things I am doing during this block that I have never honestly done before. First one is that long runs are done at an easy pace. I've 'said' I'm going easy before -- but in honesty, I was going too hard. I am doing my long runs with a HR cap--and it doesn't matter how slow I need to go--I just keep the HR down. Funny thing is - -I'm going a lot faster at that low HR than I was at the beginning of Dec--so I am assuming whatever I am doing is having a positive effect. The other interesting thing that I am seeing (or more correctly feeling) is that I can do a long run -- ok, I'm only at 12 miles right now--and feel completely fine the next day--no fatigue, no stiffness, nothing. That will be a huge bonus if I can keep that up as I get into my Ironman training later this year.
This past week I finally got my mileage up to 30 miles -- spread across 6 runs. Yup--I'm going with short, frequent runs to hopefully avoid the risk of injury. I will slowly build up so that I can fit that same mileage into 4 runs -- so that I can add more biking back in--but for now, I am a runner. I am doing some speed-work- - once a week at the track and then 1 tempo run--I'm making sure that when I am supposed to go fast, I am going fast (at least for me) and the rest of time I am working on developing that strong aerobic system along with the structural strength that I feel I am lacking in the run department.
As I look back on my training logs - -even in the years when I was training for Ironmans, I rarely have run over 30 miles in a week. In 2013 when I did 2 Ironmans--I only had 2 30+ mile weeks. Probably not surprising that I have struggled with the run durability to put in a good marathon. This year I plan on changing that. I WILL stick to the plan of excruciatingly slow long runs--and hopefully be much better for it.
2015 is going to be a great year!
