Good training

My training for the Surf City marathon has been going fantastic! It feels so good to have all of my runs in my calendar and have a specific goal that I am working towards. It makes me a little disappointed in myself that I sputtered along for so many months. But, I am back at it now and I must say, I have never felt this prepared for a race since I started racing. My paces are all on track for my goal time. Looking back through my stats leading up to all of my other races, I am consistently close to a minute per mile faster. That's a good thing. When I first started running, I was plagued (like most people) with some injuries that threatened to sideline me for awhile. That really bummed me out and I discovered low heart rate training. Which basically gets you to slow down a bit, which in turn, tends to mitigate future injury.

I believe in low heart rate training, but like anything, TOO MUCH of a good thing is bad. You HAVE to mix in speed work or else you become, well... slow! It worked out ok for me because I needed that huge aerobic base for my cross country run, but, it wasn't that great for races. Now, I am mixing in speed work, tempo runs, hill training, Lasso 800's etc. and everything is working beautifully. I did my last 20 miler at a 10:01 avg. which is much better than my previous long runs leading up to my marathons. My tempo runs have been very comfortable at around 8:30's and it was effortless to do a sub 9 the last mile of my 12 on Sunday. All very good signs to shoot for a sub 4:00 marathon. Boy wouldn't that be great? But, I will be happy with a PR of 4:07 or less.

Now, all this running has got me thinking about another adventure. Of course running across Europe holds a great appeal for me. But, realistically, that may be a few years off due to logistics. So, maybe something a little more close to home. Possibly the southbound route from Canada to Mexico, or maybe Maine to Key West. An east coast run sounds like so much fun! I have become so fascinated with history that my own little tour of the 13 colonies would be amazing. We'll see, but it is very much on my mind and when I do a big run this time, it will be coming from a happy place. Not running away from anything, but towards something. Meeting great people and seeing beautiful places. That sounds like something to look forward to!

Goals are good!

Yes, goals are good! It's funny, I kind of forgot this for the last year or so. It was hard to get excited for a race, but once I committed to doing the Surf City Marathon, everything just sort of fell into place. My training has been going very well. I have a goal time in mind and my paces have been right on target for my projected time. It has been nice to be training at higher paces as opposed to the slower paces that I was training at in preparation for my run across America and the couple +50 milers I did earlier this year. I have a 5k this Saturday that I am running with Brittany and I am very excited to be able to do races with her, now that she is a California girl again :)

I would love, of course, to PR the 5k. I'm not sure if I can do better than a 23:13, but I'm gonna try and it's gonna hurt. I get the most nervous for 5k's because there is no time to settle in. It's uncomfortable the whole way at close to my max heart rate. I prefer half marathons, but there's nothing like a 5k to see where you are really at.

I have retired the Vibrams for the time being and have been running in these.

The New Balance Minimalis shoes. After running so many miles in the Vibrams, I needed to find a very light shoe and these are working great. There's no doubt the Vibrams helped my form tremendously and switching to these shoes has made running a faster pace seem almost easy. And now, I can step on rocks and I don't feel it. That's a good thing!

So, I have taken my own advice, registered for races and have very specific training runs in my calendar. All is right with the world.

Paul