Wednesday, November 12, 2008

RECREATING THE WHEEL

Rather than recreating the wheel, I thought I’d look back at 2007 and see what training I was doing leading up to my PR at Grandma’s. Here’s what I found;

January
284 miles
50-78 mpw (64 avg)
2 days off
4 doubles
4 hill workouts
3 tempo runs of 4-6 miles
1:24:06 half marathon
19 mile long run
11 mile med-long run

February
275 miles
49-81 mpw (69 avg)
2 days off
6 doubles
4 hill workouts
2 tempo runs of 6-9 miles
No races
20 mile long run
12 mile med-long run

March
293 miles
50-81 mpw (66 avg)
2 days off
3 doubles
2 hill workouts
2 tempo runs of 5-7 miles
29:33 8K
20 mile long run
15 mile med-long run

April
254 miles
55-70 mpw (59 avg)
5 days off
4 doubles
No hill workouts
2 tempo runs of 7-10 miles
37:47 10K, plus 2 25K “races” at 7:00-7:10 pace
22 mile long run
15 mile med-long run
2 workouts of 600m
3 strides

May
268 miles
59-62 mpw (60 avg)
5 days off
No doubles
No hill workouts
2 tempo runs of 6-7 miles
1:21:49 half marathon and 17:52 5K
2 20 mile long run
14 mile med-long run
2 workouts; Ks and 1200s
3 strides
It should be noted that I also ran 290 miles in November and then 350 in December – so I had a solid 7 months of training leading up to the race.

Looking back, it appears January – March were pretty similar. Then in April I made the decision to take one day off per week and cut hills, while adding in shorter speedwork.

I’m not sure how realistic it is to try and recreate this plan in 2009. For sure I won’t have 290 miles this month. Keep in mind, all of these numbers from 2007 were before I started skiing. In any case, it is interesting to lay out the high points along the way and see that there is in fact a reason for why I ran so well. Of course, it also means that I have a lot of work ahead of me if I want to run that fast again.

Quote of the day;

“When you realize too late that you took all that aerodynamic crap a little too seriously and still have a marathon to run, it’s not what bike you’re riding, but who you are, deep down inside, that makes the difference.” – Mike Plant, author of Iron Will

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