If at first you don't suceed,

Repeat Build 1

It's a little odd not having a specific race plan to follow during the first 3 months of the year. Well, weird for me as compared to last year when I was preparing for the Stillwater Marathon in May! Even now, I have plans as far as workouts but have not assigned any "A" races except for the October marathon. Everything else, at this time, is just about working on speed, strength and racing strong.

Granted, this may change! But.......,

there are some sweet advantages to not having "A" races planned. Perhaps I'm really screwing up and  should hire a coach (no money for that) but with my built in training flexibility, I've been able to make adjustments as I wish. The funny thing is, prior years I may have not been motivated enough to have this flexibility. In other words, I may have let my week to week workouts be too flexible and not attained the fitness that I want too. This goes in line with other changes as well. Previously, if I forgot my hr monitor, then forget it. Today, well I figure since I don't do heart rate training anyway, what can hurt from missing one workout without it?


To avoid getting to my point even longer, every runner seems to have their strengths and weaknesses! What are yours? ................................................................... ................................... .............................(Dora or Diego pause)....................................................... ...............................(If you have young kids you know what I mean)...............................;-)

Some athletes strengths are endurance, some are intervals speed and some are better at the tempo runs. My running weakness seems to be the tempo runs! It is rare for me to have a bad long, slow run and 1/4 mile intervals r da bomb! Tempo runs, well, I usually fall a little short of my goal pace.

Which is exactly what happened a few weeks ago. After a great long run on Sunday, a rest day on Monday and then a strong 10 X 400m one weeknight, Friday nights 5 - 1k intervals fell short. In fact I only started the 4th interval when I just cut it stopped. I didn't have it. Again. Again as in this just wasn't one of those days, it was one of those days AGAIN. I was a little frustrated. Or maybe really frustrated!

What to do? My recovery runs are getting on the easy side. My intervals are hard but strong and I can finish them and then go to work if I do them in the morning. But my Tempo runs (longer intervals at this stage of training) tell me that I'm trying to run too fast.

Why not repeat build 1? Which is exactly what I did. My running plan, like many, has several phases.

• Base phase
• Build 1 phase
• Build 2 phase
• Peak phase
• Taper phase

Each of these phases have an objective and are 4 weeks with the 4th week a recovery week. So for example, In build 1 I would have my 400m run at 3k pace, my 1k run at 10k pace and a base pace endurance run as my main training days for the run. For the 400m runs the weeks would increase from 6 to 8 to 10 intervals with a recovery week of 6. The 1k intervals would start with 3 to 4 to 5 with a recovery week of 4.

So, I just repeated the whole build phase and this past week I was able to run my 5 - 1k intervals at a 7 minute pace! This week is recovery week. WooHoo!

The next challenge of course is build 2. For build 2, my short intervals become 1k intervals at 5k pace (instead of 400m at 3k) and my long intervals become 2k at 10 k pace. Just 3 intervals each for the first week though. Those 2k's at a 7 minute pace kind of scare me.

But they don't scare me enough not to do it!