1st week of 10 miler training

Well, it is officially training season for me - 17 weeks until the Army 10 miler. Last year I ran this race simply for fun and since I did so well on training consistently last year, I've decided to go for speed this time. Now that I know my injuries from a few years ago won't come back as long as I stretch properly, I think I'm ready to see just what my body can do. That and I've read enough posts by people who have surpassed various speed impediments they thought they had, that I am psyched to see what I can do.

So to start off, a few weeks ago, I went out to baseline my mile in preparation for speed workouts. My mile came in at 9:17 - my fastest time EVER!!!! Even better was running the mile at an average of 181 BPM and maxing out at 196 BPM. Best part though was it hurt like hell, but I recovered pretty quickly from it and didn't want to scream and run away from the next workout I had planned.

After getting my baseline, I set up a schedule (loosely based on the FIRST running philosophy) of doing 1 speed workout, 1 tempo run, and 1 long run a week with 2 days of cross-training in between and taking two days off. Considering that I have NEVER done any speed work this is going to be interesting.

My first speed workout for last week, I did within the time limits outlined. Every lap hurt like hell but when my time was up and I had to stop I was kind of feeling like I had some more juice in the tank. Tomorrow's speed workout is supposed to be harder and longer but I'm eager to see what I can bring to the table.

The tempo run for last week was supposed to be a 3 mile loop that because of time constraints, my running partner and I had to shorten to 2.2. The route goes up a pretty long incline that normally kicks my ass (I have only run the entire segment once without walking) and in typical fashon, on Thursda, for the first five minutes my legs were burning, then my lungs started to burn so I backed the pace off a little and started counting my breaths. I wanted to stop so badly but I just kept counting and putting one foot in front of the other thinking "just get to the top and then you get to recover - to the top and then recover". I got to the top and kept plugging along and next thing I knew I was feeling like I could have run forever. Talk about being bummed that we ran out of time.

The pinnacle of my week though was the long run I had scheduled for Sunday - 5 miles after 2 days of recovery. Yeah, right...recovery... One day of recovery turned into installing a retaining wall around my garden. Great workout, I have to say - not so great, however when you have to run the farthest you've run in over a month. Saturday night I was so exhausted and sore, I slept for 12 hours and woke up every time I tried to turn over. By the time I got up on Sunday it was 10:30 and hot as hell out. I considered not running but the long runs just get longer from here on out and it's not going to get any easier, so I put on my shoes and headed out. Last year, this weather stopped me dead in my tracks and I hit the wall pretty hard about 2.5 miles into it. This year, however, I averaged 11:55 miles (right on track for the end of week 1), I got 'er done, and I learned a lot of things:

1. When I start feeling light-headed and my brain starts exploding, I'm not hungry, my heart rate is too high. I need to back the pace off and just keep going.

2. Dousing my head with water, shocks my body enough that it doesn't know what to do and stops cooling me as efficiently - this makes me want to stop running.

3. Running in the middle of the afternoon 2 days a week does wonders for heat acclimation.