In the book I'm reading…..

They talk about three types of marathon training. One in which you log a certain amount of mileage per week with little to no "specific" pace/strength runs. Meaning, the beginner programs usually don't have very much speed work or hill work in them if any at all.

Another is a combination of miles per week along with some specific training workouts with speed and/or hill workouts. (lots of miles with a focus in mainly one area specific to the marathon course)  A lot of folks, myself specifically, get injuries. Last year, my goal was to do a lot of hills. I should have slowed it down a bit on the hills & concentrated on more specific training runs other than just hills.  (I blame my neighborhood & myself for that.  Nobody held a gun to my head & made me do a 21 miler, hilly 1/2 marathon, & 20 miler 3 weeks in a row without a cut back week.) 

A third is to make every single run count. Meaning, every run has a purpose. You're not just logging miles. You have the long run, the hill workout run, the speed work run, tempo run & the recovery run. Meaning that you run 5 times a week if you get all 5 of these in during the week...

We are trying to be more "specific" with our runs instead of just logging "junk" miles this time around. In the distant past, tempo runs really helped me with my speed but I almost never hit the track for speed work. I am working on "speed" every Monday morning from here on out now as I rambled about in an earlier post.

The Tempo run is supposed to be "comfortably hard". I believe I did this correctly this past Wednesday because I did talk to the folks around me a bit while running this hilly 5.1 mile route in Nolensville. I looked at my mile splits & every mile was under 9 minutes so there is some progress happening here. I have to be careful with this Wed evening run since it's very hilly, though.

Mile 1: 8:48

Mile 2: 8:41

Mile 3: 8:20

Mile 4: 8:36

Mile 5: 8:55

.1: 8:22

My goal is to do this route every week & get a little more "comfortably faster" on it & maybe even lengthen it a little each week. I really need to keep my form in check, too. This book also talks about form...relating it to how cyclists pedal. Cadence, the rotations, foot strike (no heel striking), shorter strides…It tells you to envision your feet pedaling but instead your feet are hitting the pavement softly with as little sound as possible. In other words, if your feet/shoes are making a lot of noise then you're working too hard & using too much energy to propel yourself forward. I've read all this before in the past but never read it as it relates to cycling. They talk about leaning forward from the waist just enough that you feel like you're going to fall forward if you don't move your feet fast enough. This may sound like a boring, snoring "read" to most people but it made me think of how effortless some folks run & they never seem to get injured. I long to be like that! ;-P Pictures of elite runners are in the book showing the running form. (Made me get excited about the upcoming track & field in the Olympic Games!)

Tomorrow's 14 miler will be the longest run I've done since November's NYC marathon. It's going to be rolling so who knows what pace I'll end up with but I'm looking forward to it. I want to finish it with a feeling that I could have run a little longer & maybe a little faster. Another thing this book touches on is "running by feel" & not being locked into a certain pace in your head or having your heart rate monitor dictate your pace. I'm all about running by feel but I tend to start out my long runs too fast. "Patience grasshopper" is what I will be repeating over & over in my head on these long runs leading up to Oct 7th.

Here's a reason to try to get your mile a little more speedy. Mark M. from East Nasty drove over to our Wed night group & gave a little speech about this race.  We might put it on our radar, who knows...it's cheap.  

TGIF everybody!