I ran Lake View solo again at noon. It was cool (maybe warmish), clear, and beautiful. I felt a little more zippy today so I pushed the pace a little right from the start. I was thinking maybe I'd try to average 8:00/mi. I didn't have my Garmin, and I was too lazy to do the math to calculate the target time for 5.2 miles at 8:00/mi, so I just decided to shoot for around 40:00 minutes, roughly 20:00 out and a negative split back. This would be a little faster than 8:00/mi, but what the heck.
I finished in 39:38 (7:37/mi), out in 20:18 (7:49/mi) and back in 19:20 (7:26/mi). I was pushing, especially on the way back, but I wasn't really working too hard and the legs felt great. I think I'm ready to start bumping the mileage back up next week and start getting back into a training rhythm. Now I just have to figure out a training program. I had a great year this year, so I don't want to change too much, but I do want to raise the bar. I'd like to start by gradually pushing my average weekly mileage to around 60 miles (from 45-50). Paul Petersen suggested Cody do one tinman tempo and one aerobic fartlek every week, plus 6-8 strides 3x per week. This sounds good to me, once I get used to the increased mileage. This year I've been running roughly 6 miles each weekday morning, solo M, W, F and with Larry and Wayne on T, Th. These were usually easy runs, with the solo runs sometimes including some tempo miles. I would run doubles on M, W by also running 5 miles at noon with the work guys (Tom, Nathan, others). These usually started out easy but often ended up as tempo runs. Saturday morning was typically a long run with Larry and Wayne, which sometimes also served as a team run for the "2 Slow 2 Win 2 Dumb 2 Quit" Wasatch Back Relay team.
If I continue this schedule, I can add the increased mileage by also running doubles on T, Th, F when work allows, or run longer on my morning runs by leaving a little earlier (which I did occasionally this year). I think that would be enough of a challenge for the winter months. Once spring arrives I can reevaluate. I also need to get with Tom and Nathan (all three of us want to go sub-3:00 next year) and plan our fast runs a little better.
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