twenty-seventh

3 miles, 23:30

Nothing quite like taking a nap, waking up 30min before I have to leave for work and trying to cram in a run.

It's times like these that I realize the difference between running off and on for years and running consistently/training. Most of these past 5 years I would have stayed home.

Sometimes I wonder how much good some of my "filler" runs do. I have tried to steadily increase my minimum run distance and I now have it set around 3 miles, but still, today's run felt terrible. I was half asleep most of the way. It was hot. And well, I guess I am still choosing to follow the Run Faster theme that the most important contributer to aerobic fitness/distance running is high running volume.

This post/day reiterates the reason for the name of this blog. Many days its a success just to get out there and try and stick with the running plan.

eighteenth

8 miles. 1:02:50

Another week! It always feels good to make it through. For some reason I have a hard time each week at the beginning, because I just can't believe that I will get the running in. I just have to take it one day and one week at a time. On days when I have a lot of time on my hands, I try and go for a run at the first time that I feel any motivation at all, since I never know if that will be as excited about running as I will get for the rest of the day. It has been working so far.

I am debating running the Bolder Boulder 10k. It's near the end of May and it might be a helpful race to gauge my fitness right before my official block of training starts. I'll probably decide before the end of next week.

If not, I might run my own 10k or 15k "race" and use it to set different training paces until I run an official race this summer.

ninth

5 miles in 40min. On the treadmill.

Too cold and windy to want to run outside. In the last 4 weeks of training, I have kept the majority of my runs outside and on asphalt or dirt. I am hoping that this can help prevent injury (and keep me motivated).
I felt strong the entire run, and did not feel any foot pain. I get nervous every time I start to get a small pain in the ball of either foot. I have had trouble with foot pain (two years ago) and I attributed it to an irresponsibly large amount of treadmill running. To be honest, I was running about 25-30 miles a week. I ramped up the volume too quickly and the week I got hurt I ran 10miles on the treadmill, then 8, then 8 again on 3 consecutive days. Dumb.

My goal for this week is 25 miles. I want to formulate an "official" 20 week training plan, so depending on whether I run the Boulder or Denver marathon, I have 5-8 week(ish) of base building left and would like to start my training at 30 miles/week minimum. Hopefully... Assuming all goes well.

I am basing a lot of my training planning off of Brad Hudson's Run Faster. He focuses on high milage and adaptive running. Peaking for a race by incorporating larger and larger portions of race pace running as training progresses. Flexible training schedules to avoid injury (not forcing a workout simply because it is written on the schedule). And several other key points, that offer only a simplistic analysis of his training philosophy.

I will provide more details as I continue to read and continue to flesh out my own training plan.