So on a bit of a whim, I decided to skimp on sleep Friday night (I get home from work close to 1 a.m.) and run a five mile race in the park Saturday morning. I actually thought it was a four mile race, but what's a mile here or there? I've been doing so much long slow stuff that it seemed like a good way to stretch out my legs a little, so I essentially chose to spend $25 on a speed workout.
The race was meaningless from a team points perspective, so I never pushed myself all out, but I was still pleased to end up with a 6:36 average pace, 15th woman and 4th in my age group. I ran 6:27 pace for the 10K I did in December, but that was a team points race and it was also before I got sick. I am much, much better now, but the time off from training and all that excess mucus that's still sticking around must affect the system at least a little bit.
At this point, I'm still planning on running Boston, though I'm a little bummed that my official training phase started off with a few sick weeks. Before the cold or flu or whatever it was struck, I wasn't really all that far off the mileage of my schedule leading up to my sub-3 in Columbus in '06. Now I'm trying to decide whether it's worth the risk of injury to try and get back on that schedule, or whether I should just resign myself to a lighter load and possibly a slower time.
Like last time, I'll start logging a record of my training schedule here, but due to my cold, this cycle will be 16 weeks instead of Columbus' 18.
| 1/7 | 12.3 miles | 9:14 pace, avg. HR 153, temp in the low 60's |
| 1/8 | 12.3 miles | 9:02 pace, avg. HR 167, temp in the low 60's |
| 1/9 | 10 miles | 9:01 pace, avg. HR 172, temp in the low 60's |
| 1/10 | 10.3 miles | 8:56 pace, avg. HR 146, temp in the low 40's |
| 1/11 | 9.1 miles | 9:43 pace, avg. HR 157, temp in the 50's |
| 1/12 | 8 miles | 5 mi. race @ 6:36 pace, 189 avg. HR, 2 mi. wu/ 1 mi. cd |
| 1/13 | Rest Day | |
I was surprised to see that I was already throwing in a couple two-a-days 18 weeks out last time and my typical everyday pace was about 30 seconds faster per mile than what I'm doing now. No worries though, I'm content sticking with what feels comfortable and I'll see how it goes.
Comments (3)
Good to have you aboard for sure.
Looking at that graph, you're not really that far off where you were for Columbus. You might not make it up to 90 miles, but I think your training should be comparable.
Good luck!
Posted by Adeel | January 14, 2008 9:56 PM
Posted on January 14, 2008 21:56
Chelle,
I wouldn't worry about being slower right now. It doesn't mean you won't get yourself back into relatively equal shape by Boston. Just give yourself a few weeks and see if you don't get yourself back to where you were.
Posted by tuscaloosarunner | January 16, 2008 6:03 AM
Posted on January 16, 2008 06:03
As an Excel geek... nice chart.
As a runner... wow. You're amazing.
Posted by Josh | January 19, 2008 12:55 PM
Posted on January 19, 2008 12:55