It has been a funny time lately when it comes to this blog. Since running the Valley Harvest Marathon in October I have only posted twice... which is woeful. So I figured I might as well bite the bullet and post something before too much time passes and it gets too hard to post.
So, what have I been doing from a running perspective? Miles... and lots of 'em - at least for me. The last two months have been the highest mileage months of the year for me. I ran 177 miles in November, for example, and am on a pace to eclipse that this month. You may be asking yourself why, am I increasing my distance at a period in time in which I am not even racing, and should be resting prior to increasing intensity of training for the Boston Marathon.
I really feel, that this year I was not racing under ideal conditions (who does). But hear me out. I only started running in earnest in July of last year and was felled by an injury most of last Winter. As a result, I did very little running from January to April of this year and I think I ended up running without a base of miles that I would have liked to have had. So I have been trying to establish an aerobic base this past couple of months before I begin to up the intensity with intervals and tempo runs. Currently, the distance I have been running has been increased, however, the intensity I am running at is less than normal. As opposed to a 6 mile tempo run on Thursday's, for example, I am now typically running 9 miles focusing on keeping my heart rate below 140.
Up until the last week or so I had been noticing improvement. Running at the same intensity (by heart rate) I was noticing that my avg minutes / mile pace decreased by about 20 seconds on the same trail. Lately, however, that has reversed itself - but I think that says more about footing on snow covered sidewalks than it does about conditioning.
You may be asking yourself, why would I be subjecting myself to this. I submit to you the following link:
http://undecider.blogspot.com/I will be racing... yes racing the Boston Marathon against
this man. It will be a friendly race when all is said and done, however, for the time being I do not want to risk embarrassing myself and feel the need to be as prepared as I can for our
"Duel In The Sun". I will be starting from a disadvantage, as I will be carrying about 40 extra pounds than him on race day, however, I am hoping sheer determination will provide me with some sort of buffer.
Anyway, I plan on becoming far more diligent at posting in the New Year as I train to slay the man with a PR 10 minutes below mine. I am David to his Goliath in a role association that belies our physiques. Here's to hoping I can pull off an upset of biblical proportions.
