April 1, 2014

Spring Racing Season

Spring in DC!
The calendar says winter is over, although the Wasatch Mountains have been getting pounded with snow recently, hopefully setting us up for skiing well into June. But in the spirit of the spring I'll be opening up an exciting racing season this weekend at the USA 10 Mile Championships (Cherry Blossom in Washington, DC).

After seeing some excellent progress in my workouts over the last month (I'll post more on the training I've been doing - some HARD sessions - soon), I've decided to keep my focus on the half marathon distance through the first half of the year - which means dropping the Grandma's Marathon and running the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth instead.

My racing schedule now looks like this:

April 6 - USA 10 Mile Championships
May 3 - Indy 500 Half Marathon
June 14 - Portland Track Festival 5000m
June 21 - Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon

I'm excited about the changes to the schedule. I didn't want to force any aspects of training before the Indy 1/2, but I also want to give myself the best shot possible at breaking 1:05 this spring. Now I know I'll have another full (6-7 week) block of training between Indy and Duluth, giving me another opportunity to step up my fitness a couple more notches. I'll also get a great shot at blasting my 5K PR to shreds in Portland.

Keeping my focus on the half marathon distance and in touch with my 5K speed will help set me up better for the type of training I need to do during a buildup to a fast marathon this fall. On that note, I'm planning to run the Chicago Marathon in October and use the entire summer for a big marathon buildup with only one race (Top of Utah 1/2 in August).

Less racing this year - more targeted, focused training.

You can follow the 10 mile championship race this weekend on Runnerspace.

4 comments:

  1. Love this approach Jake. This will set you up nicely for Chicago. Having that 5km fitness will certainly help make sub 1:05 half pace feel much more comfortable too.

    I'll be following along. Great work man! :)

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  2. That's the plan, David. I need to expand the gap between my 5K / Half / Marathon paces. Then I'll have more room to work with, and will be able to bring my marathon pace down with a long block of training geared specifically towards that. But it will take me more than just another month to develop that speed... I need to continue to work on it throughout the spring. Then I'll be fast enough to START training for the marathon again :-)

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  3. Less racing, more focussed racing. I love the plan and altered approach Jake. It takes a lot of guts to not just settle for winning local races and to push your boundaries. You definitely have what it takes.

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    1. Thanks Rachelle. This is my window to do things the right way and not look back with excuses/regrets.

      Our local races in Utah are great, but too many of the competitive ones are downhill... so I've got to travel a lot, but luckily work/life allows that at this time.

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