for my workout schedule from Will Steele, (also Tuscaloosa's coach) who is seemingly becoming the "bloggers coach." I sent him an email on New Years Eve, had a 10 message long email exchange, discussing what just the hell I thought I was doing with the training I was doing, and now we're working together on coming up with a plan for 'aught-eight that starts on Monday.
The good news is that I have very good foot speed, so it looks as if I have a long way to go before my aerobic capacity meets my HS 400m PR of 52 seconds. I hope it works like that.
The best part of this so far is that I feel like I have a direction for the first time in a while. Going at this on my own was becoming a bit of drudgery, even though I enjoyed my workouts. I just wasn't up to the challenge of sitting down, getting an idea of the big picture, and coming up with a plan that involved races. Also, I'm certain that while what I had in mind would have worked to some extent, that there is a better experiment to do, based on knowledge that I don't have about what has worked in best in the past for people with my running background.
Anyway, things are off and running well so far. I started a new job today also. New beginnings.
So what happened training-wise in 2007? I missed 140 days of running, and ran a total of 2210 miles. On the days that I ran, this is an average of 9.8 miles. 35 days were double days, so 260 total workouts. Each workout was an avg of 8.5 miles then.
A straight average yields 6.05 miles a day, or 42.4 miles a week.
Last few runs:
1/2 8
1/1 8
12/31 10.3
12/30 8.6
The most recent two were through slow snowy conditions.
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5 comments:
Yes, yes, absolutely, yes: we have a good idea about what workouts do what, why mileage is good, etc.--but we lack the knowledge, IMHO, of how all these things make a unified plan. THAT kind of knowledge requires years of experience.
Moreover, like me, I sense you're a blue collar type of runner, wanting to put in the work to be your best. But we don't have the clarity to know when to back down, when things aren't working, etc. It's good to have another voice for that.
At the end of the day, like you, I missed a boatload of training runs because I was inconsistant, pent up with injury. Will's going to be good to breed restraint...
Tom J., if you're reading this, any thoughts on your end?
Congrats on the new job and the new coach. Sounds like a great way to start off the year.
Yep - I'm also signed up with Will.
I just noticed your PR list. You and I are close on pretty much everything. What's your focus for the spring? I imagine our training will be pretty similar, unless we are looking at very different goals.
I wish we were closer, it would be fun to race together.
It's more of an experiment for me. I like coming up with the plans on my own. I don't know that I really understand it, but I like it. I'm not sure that it's a relief for me to have someone else do it. In fact I'd say I border on suspicious. But I'm willing to suspend that for a while and see a whole 'nother mindset.
Joseph - I'm going to be a contrarian. I like to think of myself as a white collar runner. You know, suit & tie, the whole kit & kaboodle. I'm currently shopping for wingtip flats. Black of course. :)
Joseph:
I don't know about being a blue collar runner. I'm mortally afraid I fit into the category of overly-dedicated weekend warrior wanting to take advantage of my youthful strength while I still have it.
I'm not sure if I have a problem with restraint so much as finding something better to do with myself than sit around on my behind when there's a setback. It is the case that I don't have the clarity to step back and put together a unified training philosophy. It's like I know certain stages of the production line very well, but not how everything fits together in the end. It seems to me that Will was great about having you be recovering actively, and that's going to be helpful too, I think.
Mindy:
Thanks! I'm feeling pretty good about things. Especially since my daily commute has just been cut in half.
Tom:
You and I are certainly very similar in our racing. I've actually checked in on your blog a couple times from Tuscaloosa's. I'm currently targeting a spring 8k (Shamrock Shuffle 3/30) as a mid-season race, building up to one of my favorite races of all time, the Utica Boilermaker (7/13). I'm trying to rope as many runners as I can into joining me at this race. Most prestigious 15k in the world, rolling challenging course, pint glasses instead of t-shirts, and all the free beer you can drink at the finish line block party. I was extolling it's virtues to Joseph at some point in the recent past. It's not too far from Philly!
Wingtip flats...those would look *awesome*.
I guess I think of myself as a running apprentice. There's a lot you can learn on your own, through trial and error, but having someone in an advisory role makes things happen much more efficiently.
Hmmm. I almost ran Utica last year. I don't remember why I didn't. Let's keep in touch and maybe we can meet up there. I will probably be a little undertrained for that distance - I am focusing just on the 5k this spring, but I could give it a go.
If I remember from last year - they had a pretty nice sub-elite program. Did you do that? How was it?
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