TIME TO GET SERIOUS

Today’s weather was awesome; 65 degrees, sunny, dew point of 50 and a slight breeze. It would have been a little warm for a marathon, but it was perfect for an easy 5 miles (42 minutes) over lunch. Perfect for golf too, which is where “all” my co-workers are today.

Last night I had to pick my parents up at the airport. Last weekend they few to Washington state to visit with a couple they met at the Boston Marathon in 1985. They’ve exchanged Christmas cards over the years, but that’s been the extent of their contact. I guess retirement allows you to travel more often. Just think if they had blogs 20 years ago.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been thinking about next season quite a bit lately. One of the things I need to do a better job of is tracking my program. I’m not talking about just logging what I do each day. I’m talking more about having some big picture overview that’s easy to view and know where I’m at (or want to be). Something that says November through February are base-building months, March is hills, April is anaerobic – but with more details.

Sure I’ve followed Daniels and Pfitz programs in the past, but even then I’ve never made any notes like “Starting Daniels Marathon Plan B” or “Using Pfitz’s 18-week, 70 mpw plan.” Sure I could pain-stakingly go through my log book and figure things out, but there’s got to be a quicker, easier way to get the gist of the entire program, how it went and what my thoughts were along the way, without having to page through my log book week-by-week.

My coach has a decent spreadsheet that outlined my 18 weeks before Grandma’s. It listed each week, races planned, the phase (base, strength and pace), mpw, long run, weekend mileage and training focus. I think I’d like to have a space for comments and key reminders (like “think about adding more up-tempo runs” or “make smooth transitions between phases”) as well as thoughts regarding how things are going.

It’s been nearly 26 years, I figure it’s time to “get serious” and try to make heads or tails of my training rather than just “aimlessly” running and logging my mileage.