Chasing 3 Hours: Reintroducing Myself to Mr. Pfitzinger

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Reintroducing Myself to Mr. Pfitzinger

I have had about a 3-week vacation from any kind of training and with Twin Cities Marathon 12 weeks away, it's time to reintroduce myself to Mr. Pete Pfitzinger. I have never done his 12/85 plan and it looks a little intimidating, but I'm willing to give it my best shot. Since its only 12 weeks, it wastes no time in in getting into some serious marathon paced runs. In fact the first week will be over 80 miles, capping off a week full of doubles with an 18 miler with 8 at marathon pace. It peaks at week 7 with a 104 mile week.

I'm not going into this cycle feeling particularly healthy. My Plantar Faciitis is flaring up big time. In fact, I'm gimping around the house today only after a leisurely 14 miler today. The hamstring is better. But never felt like it completely recovered after my efforts at Grandma's. Mentally I am ready to jump back into another cycle, now I have to see if this old body will hold up.

Did a little racing this week at the fairgrounds. The Richard Hoska Mid-Summer Mile was Wednesday night at its new location. I was quite excited about my new PR of 5:09, which was changed to 5:11 officially, but then the word quickly spread that it was a short course. Most Garmins are going to be off by a couple of hundredths, so I wasn't too concerned, but then I saw that the Minnesota Runner of the Year pulled the results from their website and took away our points, so I figured there was some serious concern about the length. Oh well, most people had the course short by 2 hundredths, which would still give me a 5:18 or so, which is still a big PR.

So, lets get through week one and look ahead to the MDRA 15k on August 11th.

Here is a shot of me finishing off the Mid-summer mile. A lot grimacing going on!