9:00 has been cracked!

I took the day off from running yesterday (not really by choice - crazy busy at home) and started my run today fairly refreshed. After the 9:20 per mile performance from Wednesday, I felt pretty good. As on Wednesday, I was looking forward to bettering my previous time, but not by anything significant. Big improvements come over time and not overnight. Or so I thought.

I've been reading some articles about distance training and one of them talked about how short distance runners, when slowed to marathon pacing, do far better than runners whose training is focused mostly on endurance. The reasoning is that the short distance runners develop better lung capacity and a more efficient running stride. The end result is that if you include lots of speed training along with the regular endurance training, you will see a shorter marathon time.

I've always had a very short running pace, which isn't really efficient. Tonight, I tried altering my running stride. Instead of short and fast strides, I took longer and slightly slower strides. I noticed an immediate improvement. Halfway through the run, I continued with the long strides, but I picked up the pace a bit to something a little closer to my usual pace. It was an intense struggle to maintain that pace through the last mile, but I managed.

The end result? 3 miles in 26:38. Woo!

Now that I know I can do it, I'm going to focus on perfecting my stride and slowly increasing the distance. My next milestone is going to be 5 miles in 45 minutes. I suspect it'll take me a few weeks to reach.

- Mike

A hard ol' go

I was a little late getting out for my run tonight (9pm), but at least I still got out, which is important. It's certainly a lot easier finding time for a 3- or 4-mile run than it is for 5 or more. Even a 3-mile run takes me 45 or more minutes - 10 minutes for stretching, 30 minutes for the run, 5 or 10 more minutes for cooldown stretching.

I was very surprised by my performance tonight - I was able to bring my time down to 9:20 per mile. It was quite a struggle for me to maintain that pace for 3 miles, but I did it.

My struggle tonight elevated my already heightned respect and appreciation for the expert runners who can do a marathon in less than 3 hours. To do that, you need to run a 6-minute mile - for 26 miles. An amazing feat, to be sure.

I still have such a long way to go...

- Mike

And so we begin again... Part 2

I haven't got a lot of running in over the last couple of weeks, so it's prudent that I start off my training with shorter distances for the next few weeks and then only start increasing the distance once I feel comfortable again.

I'm going to have to draw up some sort of training schedule soon, but I'm thinking about doing four runs of 3 miles and one run of 5 miles each week for the next couple of weeks. I will probably increase the long day distance by at least 1 mile per week. that should give me lots of time to get me to the 15-mile mark.

Completing 13 miles in less than 2 hours means that I'll have to run a 9-minute mile (13 X 9 = 1h57m). In all of the training for the full marathon that I did, I never really did better than a 10-minute mile, so cutting out an extra minute per mile and maintaining that pace is going to be difficult.

Tonight was the first night that I got out as part of my new training schedule and I surprised myself by running a 9:45 mile. By focusing on speed over short distances for the next few weeks, I should be able to get that down to 9 minutes.

- Mike

A change of plans

It's been a few days since I made my fateful decision about dropping out of the Valley Harvest and I must admit that I've been pretty bummed out about the whole thing. Of course, there's really not much I can do about it, so I guess I'd better just suck it up.

And then this morning, things changed. Again.

I was in the shower thinking about how I was going to stay motivated until January, when I could start full-out training again. I tend to lose interest in things rather quickly, so I need lots of motivation to keep me focused on my goal. Trying to keep up a maintenance program for 6 months was going to be hard for me.

As I've mentioned before, I've really only ever been interested in the full 26 miles because running a half marathon is really quite easy (distance-wise, anyway). So if the distance itself wasn't going to be a challenge, I started thinking about what I could do to turn it into one.

When I ran the Bluenose back in May, it took me 2:35 to run the first 13 miles. If I'm ever going to crack the 4-hour mark for a full marathon, I'm going to have to bring that time down to less than 2 hours.

Ding! There's all the motivation I need right there.

And so the new plan is to run the Valley Harvest half-marathon and to do it in less than 2 hours. If I'm successful, it'll push me a long way towards breaking that 4-hour mark for the Bluenose next May.

- Mike

Decision time

I've been trying very hard over the last few weeks to try to get myself up to a 25-30 mile week, but it's just been too difficult. Between work and spending time with the family, I'm unable to find a minimum of 1.5 hours a day to dedicate to training (minimum days are 5 miles).

And so I have decided to abandon my efforts for running in the Valley Harvest marathon in October.

With the Valley Harvest off the table, that leaves next year's Bluenose as the next race. Olivia will be much older and a little less needy by January, so finding the time to dedicate to training should be much easier. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Of course, I don't want to start from scratch again come January, so I'm going to try to get in 3-5 miles as often as I can - 12 miles a week would be great, but I'll just have to wait and see how that plays out.

- Mike