Monday, December 04, 2006

HANGING OUT

Work’s getting in the way, so I’ll keep this short today. Saturday I met Jenna and Kim at Lake Harriet. I tagged along for 15 of their 20 miles, which gave me 81 miles for the week. I’ve talked with Kim a few times, but this was the first time we’ve run together.

The Reindeer 5k was taking place during the end of our run, so we got to watch that. We were all amazed how many people were running, especially since it was only about 10 degrees out with a nice stiff wind. Prior to the race it was hyped that the Team USA Minnesota runners would be doing the race. Technically they were there, but I wouldn’t call 21 minutes “racing” for those guys - although Jenelle Deatherage did break 17.

Yesterday I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone by jumping on the treadmill while watching some football. I ended up running 12 miles at 8:30 pace. Today will be two easy 6 mile runs.

Many of my thoughts lately have been about my weekly mileage. Right now I’m planning on hanging out around 80-85 for awhile and seeing what happens. Part of me thinks about last winter when I had five weeks between 92 and 100 mile during January through March. While that’s solid mileage, it was only for 5 of the 13 weeks. If I dig a little deeper, I see that I “only” averaged 82 mpw during those 3 months.

So the question becomes, is it better to stay at 80-85 and be consistent or increase to 90-100 with the help of cutback weeks? I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that it’s only December 4th. There’s plenty of time to hang out at 80-85 before increasing to 90-100 later in the winter.

Quote of the day;

“The more you frame the marathon as a stressful experience, the more negative messages you’ll receive. But it’s just as easy to frame it as a positively challenging journey.” – Jeff Galloway

5 comments:

Andrew said...

You meant 100 - 110 miles I think. 5 weeks on, 1 week regeneration. Or something like that.

Just kidding around but why not consider Lydiard's standard schedule?

M 15
T 10
W 15
Th 12
F 18
Sa 10
Su 22

It's calling you.

Chad said...

90-100 or 100-110 - it's all the same.

I might be able to handle that schedule if I doubled up at least 3 days.

Just the thought of running 15, 15, 18 and 22 in singles in the same week makes my head hurt.

Allez said...

81 miles! Wow! How do you like running in the cold MN weather?

Mike said...

Hey Zeke- man-up dude. Only averaging 82mpw!?
Just kidding of course. During the winter months out there that is pretty friggen impressive. What % of total miles is on the mill? Hopefully not close to a 100% because that would make you a monster!

Chad said...

Allez, it's not even cold yet. I don't mind it. It's better than the heat you have in Texas.

Mike, not a ton of miles are on the mill. Two weeks ago 7 of 80 were on the mill, last week 19 of 81 were.

Usually I run on the mill more due to wanting/having to stay home, than because of the weather.