The Next Step

This is my first entry on the fastrunning blog. I have been blogging for several months and got pretty discouraged with the feedback from the blog. I am a middle of the pack runner and would like to get faster so I started the blog hoping to get some serious feedback about my running. What I found was that most bloggers stop by say a few encourging words and move on. The other thing that I am looking for is feedback from people that have experience and know something about training. I have read a fair amount on training but want to learn from other experience. I hope that this blog site is more geared for this kind of discussion. So here goes...

Today I did a very easy 4 miles. I just ran a half marathon last Saturday (1:34) and wanted to take a few recovery days before jumping back into my training. I did 5 miles yesterday and my legs were a little sore. Today they felt much better so hopefully I am on the way to recovery. I am planning a couple of more falls races (5k & 10k) before I go into the winter base building phase. So my plan is recovery this week and then back into training for the 10k next week.

4 miles, 32:32

Keeping with the recovery plan for this week, I did an easy 8 miler today. It was a great morning to run (around 48 degrees) and I felt really good. It was one of those days when you feel like you can really push the pace without any problem. Even though I wanted to run fast I tried to stick with my plan and keep it easy. Hopefully, what this is telling me is that I am recovering from the race last Sat and will be ready to go next week when I start working on my 10k speed.

Tomorrow will be a rest day since we are planning a day with the kids for their fall break.

8 miles, 64:39, 8:05 pace, 148 avg HR

My kids are on fall break from school so we are out of town and trying to spend some quality family time. I was able to squeeze in 4 miles today on the treadmill at the hotel. It was very easy with nothing much to report on. Just looking forward to getting back into serious training next week.

Today I did my first long run since the half marathon and it felt really good. I started out at a pretty easy pace and it seemed like each mile was faster as I went along. I settled into around 7:45 pace after about 4 miles and heart rate was staying below 70% which is what I wanted to do. This pace is faster than my normal easy pace but my heart rate is the same as it has been for other long runs. I think this is a result of two things: 1. better conditioning 2. better weather. Here in the midwest we have had very hot and humid fall so we are just starting to benefit from better running weather. Today it was 50 degrees and a misty rain.

I feel like I have done a good job of recovering from the half marathon so I am going to get back into normal training. I am going to try to increase my mileage and sprinkle in some faster runs. I am looking at two more races this fall before the winter sits in. I am planning a 10k in early Nov and a 5k in early Dec. I ran my PRs in these races a couple of years ago and I want to compare my conditioning now to what it was when I set the PRs.

10 miles, 1:18:49, 7:53 avg, HR avg 151

I normally don't run on Sunday but since I missed a couple of days this week due to vacation I decided to go out for a easy run. Only thing to note is that it was the first time this fall I had to break out the hat, gloves, tights, etc. It was cool (about 30 degrees) with a light wind. I felt I little stiff and tired during the run. Probably due to running 10 yesterday.

Today I wanted to do a few repeats to get the legs moving again. It was a great day around 50 degrees and sunny with some wind. I did a little over 2 miles for the warm up and then did 6 x 600 with a couple of minutes recovery. I did the 600s in around 2:20 each. Also, these were done on the road so the distance could be off a little.

I felt pretty good in the warm up but my legs are still feeling a little heavy just like yesterday. I am not sure what this is from because I felt great at the end of last week and have not done anything hard since then. Anyway, the repeats went fine but I could tell it has been awhile since I have ran this fast so the body was taking some time to adjust. Finished up with a couple of miles for the cool down.

Today I traveled to Washington, DC for business so I did an easy 6 miles. It was a beautiful fall day and the run went very smooth. I felt better than I have for the last few days. It is always nice when I run in DC I get to run more hills than normal. This is something that I don't get very often in Indiana so it feels like an extra benefit.

6 miles, 50:56

Still in DC and went out for an early morning run. It was a cool morning but great day for running. A little rough running in DC in the dark but luckily I am familiar with the area. I started off at a easy pace and didn't really pick it up any throughout the run. It felt good just to run at a comfortable pace without pushing it. I am hoping that this week I can pretty much duplicate the training that I was doing prior to the half marathon. I had been doing a long run and then one medium long run a week. Today was typical of the medium long run that I have been doing the last couple of months.

10 miles, 1:23:06