May 30th is the day
So, I kick off my training plan on May 30th with a race around Lake Nokomis, the Brian Kraft 5K. It's super flat and fast and looking forward to a sub 18:45 time. That will mark the beginning of a 65-mile week and lots more miles to come.
I've reviewed my checklist of my top 10 improvements that I should do before training begins and I'm feeling good, both mentally and physically. My diet has improved greatly, with almost ZERO refined sugar, very little alcohol, lots of whole grains and a big increase of fruits and veggies and errr, fiber. I'm keeping up with the fish oil regimen and am taking a super potent daily vitamin supplement from GNC. I've been really good about doing my conditioning 3 to 4 times per week. I've added hillwork and running drills to my plan and believe it or not I've added cognitive therapy and visualization to the mix. I bought some compression socks to aid in recovery and plan on adding ice baths to my routine. (Not looking forward to those) I have two-a-days planned and I've stuck with my strategy of running my easy runs easy and my hard runs hard. However, I just realized today that there is one very important detail missing; I haven't signed up for the race yet! It's definitely on my to do list now! That would have been embarrassing if I forgot to sign up for the race. I've also signed up to teach the marathon clinic at the running store I work at. It's a beginner marathon plan and I'm looking forward to helping some people get the the finish line of their first marathon. I run with the group once a week for 16 weeks and we cover miscellaneous running topics. We also host a run club, which will be a good opportunity for me to get my two-a-days in.
I just stumbled across your blog -- it sounds like we have a lot of the same races planned! Good luck with your sub-3 ... I'm sure you have it in you on the right day.
ReplyDeleteI spent eight years trying seriously for a sub-3 before it finally happened last year, so there is hope. In the marathon I think experience trumps youth ... at first I thought sub-3 would be easy (based on race times at shorter distances), and would waste too much energy early in the race only to crash & burn later. I'm slower in shorter races now, but finally learned how to spread my energy evenly in a longer race.
It sounds like you've got a great plan in place. Good luck with the execution, and have fun with it!