AS USUAL

Of course, it makes sense when following a program named the Endless Season that you would race a lot. The whole idea is that you want to be race-ready all the time. The tradeoff being that you don’t race all-out and you never really peak for any specific event during the season – or at least not until the end. The author, Joe Rubio, argues that most runners don’t get the peaking phase right anyway. So why not take it out of the equation?

Longtime readers may not believe this, but here’s the race schedule I put together for 2012. NOTE: (gp) = MDRA grand prix event;

JANUARY
1/9 – Meet of Miles (gp)
1/23 – Winter Carnival Half (gp)

FEBRUARY
2/19 – Indoor track 5,000m

MARCH
3/11 – Indoor track 5,000m
3/18 – Human Race 8K (gp)
3/24 – MDRA 4-mile

APRIL
4/7 or 4/14 - ?
4/21 – Fitger’s 5K
4/28 – Get in Gear 10K (gp)

MAY
5/12 – New Prague Half (gp)
5/17 – TC-1 mile
5/28 – Brian Kraft 5K (gp)

JUNE
6/10 – Outdoor track 5,000m
6/15 or 6/23 - ?

JULY
7/4 – Firecracker 10K
7/15 – Raspberry 5M
7/26 – Rice Street Mile (gp)
7/28 – Run for Blood 5K (gp)

AUGUST
8/12 – MDRA 15K
8/25 – Rochester Half (gp) – might be on vacation

SEPTEMBER
9/3 – Victory 10K (gp)
9/9 – City of Lakes 25K (gp)

OCTOBER
10/7 – TCM (gp)

NOVEMBER
11/4 – Rocky’s Run (gp)

As of now my plan is to follow this plan through the end of July and then transition to a 8-week marathon build-up with a two week taper.

As usual, everything sounds good on paper. Let’s see if I can make it work.

Quote of the Day;

“Many elites have prospered on this "endless season" approach. In the 1970s and early '80s, many runners would get themselves into pretty good shape, race fairly often and remain in this mode for months on end… Do you need to race every week? Probably not, but a race every two to three weeks helps immensely. Additionally, racing is a skill, and to become proficient at any skill, you need to practice it repeatedly to show improvement.” – Joe Rubio