No Rest for the Weary

I want to be a faster runner.  I’ve never really thought that I could run fast, it just never crossed my mind.  My 8K results lit a fire in me, so to speak, and now I want to be faster, and more importantly, I am convinced that I can be.  I have no idea what my goal pace should be for any given distance.  I don’t know how much it is reasonable to expect to improve over X number of days, weeks, months or years.  And I don’t care.  I’m arbitrarily choosing the Charlottesville half-marathon as my first checkpoint.  I want to finish it in under two hours. Is that realistic considering my time last year was 2:25:28?  Maybe not.  I’m going to try anyways.  According to the Race Time Predictor, I should be able to run a 5K in 26:07, which is an 8:24 pace, and run a 10K in 54:21, which is an 8:45 pace.  My only 5K race (not attached to a triathlon) was 29:54, so I just need to shave 4 minutes….I know I can do it.  Not entirely sure when I’ll do it, but I know I can.

Training starts tomorrow.  I’ve posted my training plan on the “Training Plan -2011” page.  I’m going to focus on running again through this winter, just like last year.  This time, though, I am going to place my focus on running fast, rather than running far.  I’m starting with one day of speed work each week and add a second day of speed work in the last 12 weeks or so of training.  I’m going to try to do some interim races to track my progress, or at least do “home” races every few weeks.  I’m also adding two days of weight training back to my training.  Adding muscle can’t hurt and I know that I’ve lost a lot of strength since I stopped lifting in favor of HIM training.  Something new I’m going to try is doing yoga once a week too.  I’m hoping that placing an emphasis on stretching at least once a week will prevent any encounters with IT band issues or any other injuries that can crop up.  As you’ll see in my schedule, I’ll be running significantly more (miles and days) every week than I have in the past, so I want to make sure to stay healthy!  I’m hoping yoga helps in that.  I’m not planning on taking any yoga classes right now, just doing videos or on-demand at home.  I think it would be a bit ambitious for me to actually go somewhere to do yoga right now.  It will be much easier to fit into my schedule if I can do it right here.  My alarm is set to start tomorrow at 6AM, and I’ve already chosen a program from the on-demand menu.  I need to pick up some yoga DVDs to try.  I have one, but it has gone missing, and I’m afraid I may have let someone borrow it and will never see it again.

My planned training for this week is:

Monday – Yoga AM, NROLW Stage 1 A1 PM

Tuesday  – Run 3 miles

Wednesday – Run 5 x 400 m @ 5K pace

Thursday – Run 3 miles AM, NROLW Stage 1 A2 PM

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Run 3 miles

Sunday – Run 5 miles

Monday and Thursday may be tough to get everything done because I have dog agility training classes both evenings, but I’m going to do my best to do the lifting.  If I have to miss one of the days, I will do the second day on Saturday.

By the way, if you reading from an RSS reader, I did some work updating the look of my blog today.  I’m not 100% it is going to stay like this.  I’m not in love with the new layout/theme yet.  I did change the main title of my blog- “Triathlon Training Blog” was just too boring.  This is my journey of becoming stronger and faster and going longer.  It’s only taken me a year and a half to be a little more interesting, but better late than never!  Let me know what you think of the new look!