Posts Tagged ‘Lynchburg Half Marathon’

My body is telling me something — after 4 weeks of increasing my overall miles and after two weeks in a row of 12-mile runs, it’s time for the first recovery week. I really wanted to have one more week of increased miles and get to 30 miles for a week, but my legs are flat out tired right now.

So, I made a decision today to cut my miles back for the week and let my body recover from the past four weeks of training for the Richmond Marathon. Since 19.7 miles for the week ending July 11, I have logged weeks with mileage of 23.2, 25, 26.7 and 26.9. It doesn’t really feel like that much, but the heat and humidity coupled with the gradually increased mileage has taken its toll.

This all being said, however, comes on a week in which I have a half marathon planned — a non-race race, as I wrote about recently. This could change my strategy for the weekend, but I’m not really making that decision right now. I’m still doing the race and still plan on 14 miles being my long run for the week despite what most people do on a “recovery” week. I just know that I need to cut back on the miles for a few days or else my legs will absolutely hate me.

This is part of my non-plan plan, and I’m sticking to it.

I’ve always kept an open mind with my training and like to stay as open as I can to shifting things around. This week was a prime example of what I’m so flexible. On Wednesday, the day that has become my long run day, the weather was awful. It was humid beyond belief — the heat index was near 110 in the afternoon. Thankfully some storms rolled through to cool things off, but they came at a time that I would usually run.

Earlier in the day I made the decision to cut my long run by at least half and just do it over the weekend. When the threat of storms grew, I was forced to cut things even shorter, only getting in 3.1 miles. By moving my long run to today, little did I know I would be greeted with low humidity and temperatures in the mid-60s at 6:15 a.m. Awesome would be an understatement considering how hot and humid it has been in recent weeks.

I ended up having a good 12.4-mile run without having to take a water bottle with me for a change. I ran 4.2 miles with my dog, stopped at home, took a gel, drank some water and headed back out. About three miles later I stopped at a water fountain at some local baseball fields. I then ran a big hill, looped around the Elks National Home and got some more water a mile later. It set me up well for the final 3 miles or so. While I’d like to be faster, I did today’s run in less than 2 hours, which is actually 4 minutes faster than last week’s 12-mile run in the heat.

I have some work to do on my long runs, and next week I’ll be doing the Lynchburg Half Marathon that should help get some speed work in on a distance run. It’s not a race … at least that’s what I have to keep telling myself. I’m in a much better place with my Richmond Marathon training than I was the first time I did this. I have more miles overall, my longer runs are already longer, I’m faster even though I feel slow, my weight isn’t as high and I think I have a better attitude about this.

Less than 98 days to go!

“As I look ahead to the second half of 2010, I am ready to capitalize on what I’ve already done.”

Those are my words at the end of June. So far, so good. When July got under way, I just kind of gave myself a “whatever” approach to the month. What happened was one of the best months of running for the year.

Here are the top running highlights:

• A PR in the mile (minus whatever I did in high school).
• A good effort in the heat in a 5-miler.
• Passing my mileage from 2009.
• And to cap things off today, I ran 5.1 miles to get my July running miles past 100 miles for the year — 100.3 to be exact. That’s the second triple-digit month this year (April was the other month).
• For some of my non-running highlights from July, check out my post from yesterday, “The right direction.”

In a year in which so many things are going right, July just sets the tone for the last half of this year. As I look ahead to August, I plan to run later tomorrow to get to 30 miles for the week, my first 30-mile week since … well, I don’t really know (Sunday edit: I’m very tired today, so that 30-mile week is going to wait). I plan to continue to increase my mileage and my long runs as the Richmond Marathon gets closer. With the marathon 15 weeks from today, my non-plan plan will continue. I’m just going with what feels right, while loosely following some guidelines I’ve set for myself. From a mileage standpoint, I’d like to be between 110 and 120 miles.

In two weeks I am running the Lynchburg Half Marathon for the third time, but it will be more like a first-time event since the course has been completely altered from the last time I did the race. I’m not setting any goals for that since I want it to be more or less a long run a little faster than I’m used to. It’s a great opportunity to run with a large group and speed myself up a bit for a longer distance.

Other than that, I just want to continue this great 2010. So here’s to another months of great running!