Monday, August 01, 2005

Week in Review

Monday: none
Tuesday: 3.57 on the flat
Wednesday: 7.14 on the flat
Thursday: 5.03 on the flat
Friday: none
Saturday: none
Sunday: 8.2 miles with hills

By and large I had a good running week. I'm incrementally increasing my mileage and adding in new challenges like hills and jogging strollers without any real hint of injury thus far. Yesterday I ran over a mile further than my longest run to date. Woo hoo! The trip to the running store got postponed until this coming Saturday - allowing me to hopefully benefit from the comments made by those of you who emailed me while my crapp-o comments were broken.

I am supposed to start the Hal Higdon training schedule for the Vegas marathon officially today. I’ve been sort of following it for the past month or so since I decided to do the run and now at the official starting of the schedule I’m ahead of where I should be, at least according to the plan. I decided to sort of modify the Higden three shorts and a long plan. I've been wanting to add more total mileage but not do it in a haphazard fashion. Instead of running three short maintenance runs all of the same length during the week I decided to try the following:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: shortest run of the week
Wednesday: second longest run of the week - about what Hal says I should be running
Thursday: don't push it. I won't make myself stay at the short run recommended by the training schedule but I won't go too much past it.
Friday: rest
Saturday: rest
Sunday: Long run - challenge myself to run further than I have. Don't make myself stop unless my body is seriously protesting, go for the runner's high!

I don't want to set myself up for a training injury. Does anyone think the proposed is too risky?

5 comments:

:) said...

I am starting that same exact plan, only next Monday. I am also altering it a bit to include some simming and cycling. I don't think you can hurt yourself with only one looong run a week...just listen to your body! You will know if you need to back off a bit.

:) said...

What is simming you ask? It is swimming without the "w"!

Unknown said...

hey scott, i can comment!

like i emailed previously, i'd recommend you take advantage of the work you've put into your fitness and not back off on the miles to match what hal is asking you to do. keep up the mileage and increment similar to what he's got laid out.

once you start getting over a long run of, say 16-18 miles, then i'd plateau out and keep the mileage consistant for a couple weeks until hal catches up with you.

this does a couple things for you. first, you're building a better base and spending more time running distance. second, you've got lots of longer runs to experiment with equipment, fuels and fluids. finally, if you do end up with an injury, you've got a nice buffer to allow you to recover.

if you're maxing out on 7-8 miles and running 4 times a week right now without any pain, then there's a good bet you won't run into any injury issues. be smart about 'pushing it', make sure you warm up (start out with the first mile or so a little slower) and cool down (walking after and stretching), and RICE/MICE if you end up with any sore joints.

man, seems every time i go to answer a simple question for you, i run off at the fingers (haha).

so, the short answer is, you're in great shape with a good base so the modified training schedule looks good.

Unknown said...

And stretch. And stretch some more. Stretch before and after. Stretch at work. Do not skimp. Even if adequate strecthing means you'll only get in a couple miles due to time constraints. Oh...and...stretch.

a.maria said...

oh, sad, i have no knowledge of anything! but, i wanted to comment at least just to say GO YOU!! and have fun on your marathon training and.... i look forward to following your little adventure!