5 Miler With the group

Ran up to the Art Museum last night to run with PRs. About 3/4 of a mile up there. Laura, who I hadn't seen in awhile was there. Ran with Laura and her crew out to the John Kelly Statue and back with Ryan. 4.4 miles plus the 3/4 for about 5.1 miles total. Pace ended up being 9:20. Not as fast as I had hoped considering that this was supposed to be my fast run. Ryan and I definetely picked up the pace at the end though. Everytime I run with Ryan I find that we tend to push each other in a weird sort of saddistic way. My recent experiences included setting out for a 6 something mile run (originally planned as an 8.4 mile loop) when neither of us had done more than 3 since doing the Marine Corp Marathon, and a Tuesday group run 2 weeks ago where we really pushed the pace down into the 8s.

Still, I can't help but wonder where my mid to low 8 days have gone. I used to come out and run a fast pace being 8:15-8:30, a bit slower than race pace with exception of marathons. I guess I shouldn't get too discouraged though, as I was able to keep that pace as recently as my training for the Marine Corp Marathon this past fall 2005. I think that with time and the better mileage I am putting in compared to last winter, my times will come down.

For a long time I was a proponent of three days per week, but recently I have picked up a modified version of a half-marathon training plan from Her Sports. I am usually not a big fan of woman targeted fitness magazines, as they tend to be a little "soft" and very geared toward weight loss and not really toward fitness or competition. But this magazine is pretty good. I picked up a copy at the expo for MCM, and it has a good mix of novice and advanced advice and focuses mostly on running but also covers triathalons, biking, hiking and other sports.

So in this training plan I do 4 days running per week
1. Hills 45-50 min
2. 40 min easy
3. Long run 6-12 miles depending on the week 2 of these are at race pace
4. Hard day (tempo, intervals, 50 min) depending on the week

And then 1 day of cross-training 45 min

The thing I really like about this 10 week plan is that it consistently includes hills (my addition to the plan) which will help for Caesar Rodney. The original plan also included 5 days per week of running...but I scaled it to 4.

I am on the 3rd week of the plan, and so far so good.

So far this winter has been much more active than last winter, but to be fair, the weather has also been milder. But I will take what I can get.