Every Run is a Great Run!

Is this another one of those downhill races? Good luck this Saturday, hope the pain isn't bothering you by then.

Jeff actually this race is one of the few 1/2 marathons in the state that isn't net downhill. It's an out-and-back "honest" course with a small loop in the middle and enough hills and often canyon wind to make it a bit slower than a true flat course. Actually I entered the course into the Course Tool a while back (see "Spanish Fork 1/2 Marathon"), if you want to take a closer look.

As far as the aches and pains...I've had lingering issues (lower abs, groin, hamstring) since spring that I can see aren't going to go away entirely until I take some much needed downtime from running. After talking to my doctor I made the call a couple of months ago to wait until AFTER the October marathon to do whatever necessary to properly address the mini-injuries, and get rid of the lingering problems once and for all. Was this the right choice? Don't know for sure but I'm thinking if I would have been wiser I would have taken a break the last 2-3 weeks of April. We live and we learn.

So what this means is that my races and much of my training have been mostly off since spring and I've had to modify my marathon expectations to where before sub-2:50 was a possibility for the SG marathon (which is very downhill and fast), but now I'm more focused on just trying to get the sub-3 hour and not causing any major injuries before or during the race.

So anyway this means a fair amount of frustration, but what still makes me pretty happy is that even though these recent races have been "off", I'm still setting huge race PR's compared to what I was running previous years. If I run a 1:30 or slower on Saturday I'll be disappointed, but on the other hand my PR for this race is 1:36, making a 1:30 a little easier to swallow.

Tom, when I encountered my injury issues back in May I set to it that I was completely starting over ... without starting over. I eliminated all speedwork, cut my mileage in half and rebuilt my way back by the 10% increase every 3 weeks principle. I've been very pleased with this course of action and I plan on doing no speedwork until next year. Just continually working on bringing down my AT and LT. I think for me this made more sense, mostly because I'm really only in the 14th month of my running career.

Jeff I think I'll be doing something similar to what you're doing through the winter but with lots of crosstraining to begin with until my running feels like it used to feel (i.e. without the annoying pains that are there almost every day currently). Then when I've felt that way for a few weeks I'll start gradually adding in the HMP and MP paced tempo runs but nothing faster at least until the cold winter months are over.