It’s been two weeks of training and my legs are beginning to cooperate again. Got in my first “long-run”, a big bad 7-miler! (Can you feel the sarcasm?) Baby steps! Last thing I want is to do too much too soon and get myself injured. Hopefully within a few months, this past week’s “Long-Run” will be a normal base day of training for me.
So I have recently settled on some races. I have two key “building” races that I will be using on my way to Umstead 2012. First is the NJ Marathon which I will be running on May 1st. This is run on roads and is extremely flat so it will not be specific to Umstead however it’s a nice spring marathon and the timing seemed to fit. My second test leading up to Umstead 2012 will be the Can Lake 50M. This is held Columbus Day weekend so hopefully the wife and I can make a mini vacation out of it. The Elevation profile is nothing too crazy, but it should still be challenging. I have to start working on that hill training as well as walking those inclines. I am really excited about these races because they give me some shorter term goals and will keep me motivated and focused throughout this long training process. I do not have a specific training plan for the Marathon. I will just continue to add to my base mileage while increasing my long run. (I am not trying to qualify for Boston!) For the 50M however, I am thinking about using the Santa Clarita Runner’s program. The program can be found on their website and it basically generates a plan based on the race date and length of the race. It is pretty plain and simple. There isn’t any specified speed or tempo work, just a mileage guide.
In between these two races I will also be running some shorter races that I can utilize as some added motivation as well as a gauge for my performance and progress. A week after the NJ Marathon in May I will be running back to back 10Ks however I am going to use these as easy training runs because I do not want to do too much following the marathon. The first race I will participate in is the Newport 10K which is a local race that I enjoy running in and they always give away a pretty decent Tech Tee! Then, the following day, I will be running part of the North Face Endurance Challenge series. I will be running the 10K at Bear Mountain. The reason I am doing this one is in support of a couple of my co-workers. They are both getting back into running so we all chose this race as a goal. Hopefully they will get to enjoy running as much as I do and stick with it. I like to take any chance that I can get to help open someone else up to the world of running. I stand by the idea that after a run, you will always feel better than you did before.
Now for the weight stuff... I dropped a few pounds last week which is good. No specific diet, just cleaning it up and watching my portions! I feel even the smallest of weight loss improves my ability to run a great deal.
12/28/2010 – 225.4 lbs
01/10/2011 – 224.0 lbs
01/16/2011 – 220.6 lbs
Thanks for dropping by. Feel free to follow my training at both twitter and dailymile at the following:
Keep up the good work, babe!
ReplyDeleteAs for the mini-vacation, I am all for it... we'll just have see if "the husband" will be able to function after the 50K! :)
- Mrs. West, aka "the wife"