September 23, 2013

Summer 2013 Training Recap and Change in Philosophy for the Fall

I guess I could call it my "Ron Clarke / Bill Rodgers" summer - lots of races! I raced twice in June (Utah Valley 1/2 and USA 1/2 Champs), then 15 more races (if you count all three stages of Tour de Run, which I will - it was hard!) from that point until the Top of Utah Marathon.

My daily workouts are all posted on Fast Running Blog: June - July - August - September.

To summarize, I basically just decided that I was going to take a break from consistent high mileage and marathon-style training (ie. long runs and long tempos), and get more comfortable with running un-comfortably hard over the summer. Pretty much all of my workouts were geared towards 5K-10K-HM paces. Despite the lack of long (20 mile) runs, I did quite a few 14-16 milers (a lot of times twice a week) with the Alta High School XC team. Once a week, we'd do a run of ~15 miles up at Alta ski area (9000+ feet elevation).


In some ways, I was squeezing in a lot - races, my own workouts, running with the high school kids, but it was worth it. I had a lot of fun. Despite lots of racing, my overall mileage was a lot lower than it has been in the past, and that has probably contributed to the fact that my hamstring(s) finally appear to be healed. That took a full year - I originally tweaked my right hammy in the 2012 TOU Marathon.

Now I'm going to shift gears a bit, and the philosophy is going to change. I've been thinking about this all summer, but I knew I was going to wait until after the TOU Marathon to implement the new plan. The main goal going forward is to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Trials Marathon. That will require running under 1:05 for the HM, or under 2:18 for the marathon (FYI - that's only the "B" standard!). I feel like I've been on the right track this summer, but what I really need to incorporate is more REST. So rather than squeeze 3 (sometimes 4) quality runs into a week, I'm planning to scale it back to 2 quality workouts per week: a midweek lactate threshold session, and a weekend long run with some tempo / marathon-pace component incorporated into it. These workouts will be a lot more challenging, but I'll get ~3 easier days between each session. Some weeks I'll probably jump in some local 5Ks - so in those cases I'll run a short race on Saturday and then do my long run on Sunday.

I'm planning to run the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon on November 2nd as my next big race. If I'm in shape to give it a serious shot, I'll go after the OTQ time. Beyond that, I'm tentatively planning on running the California International Marathon on December 8th. Same goal - OTQ (ie. 2:17).

Recap of the summer below. I think blocking things off into this type of calendar format is a great way to see the big picture...

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