November 24th, 2010
Talk about a fast recovery. Monday I had 6@8:57 and that was all I needed. Yesterday, my legs were back to normal – 8mi @ 8:10. Surprised at how comfortable it felt, I was downright effervescent by the time I got home.
It’s a nice break, this week, not having any quality on the menu, just easy running, though mileage will be pretty good: mid to upper 50s. Then next week I’m back to work for the Carlsbad Half Marathon in January, giving me another of these cute 8 week “cyclettes”. They’ve worked out great - long enough to make a dent but not so long that your focus gets hazy or you lose momentum.
Winter to Spring
I realized yesterday that I hadn’t even begun to think of plans beyond Carlsbad. While I could do another Half, that’d be 4 in a row with the same type of training and I’m a lover of variety, so that wasn’t thrilling me. Then it hit me that one thing I’ve never done and that would fit beautifully with my recent post on Top End Speed, is to spend a full cycle working on even shorter races than Halfs.
So this is the plan: starting in February I’m going to specifically train for a couple of my favorite 5Ks, which’ll include racing a 5-miler and 10k. The cycle will culminate with Philly’s famous 10-mile race, the Broad St. Run on May 2nd. So I’ll start by focusing on the faster end, then stretch it out for Broad St.
This works out really well since
1. I get a change of pace (yuck yuck). I’ll keep up the mileage since I really love the amount I do (around 60mpw) but this’ll mean shorter/faster interval distances and tempos.
2. I get to zero in on that untapped top end which is good because I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit those zippier workouts in this next Half cyclette – now I’ll just wait to focus it after January.
3. A real concentration on shorter/faster is bound to give my running a dramatic boost for the rest of the year (if only I could make summer go away…sigh).
And that’s the plan, man! It’s exciting to have something new ahead and one where endurance isn’t the main focus for a change.
Posted in 
Tags: 
I’m toying with Broad st as well, I’ve never done it and would like to.
Excellent!!! C’mon down! Would love you to join me.
and by join, you mean finish 10 minutes behind you :P
Oh shush, silly girl.
shorter/faster is a good plan, as is your whole plan in general. maybe something i should learn a lesson from!
and i like mini “cyclettes” too. for me there’s less of a chance to get into the big huge mental game that plagues me!
p.s. i’m sending you an email in response to your comment on my blog yesterday. don’t worry it’s not mean or anything but my response was likely to be lengthy and I want to tap into your brain
Cool, I’ll keep an eye out for it (and thanks for letting me know it won’t be scary, lol). You know I think you rock the house, which is why I’ve been talking to you straight. And whatever we can do to quell the mental games (because doll, you know how much that crap affects me too) the better we’ll be.
Sounds like a great plan, Flo! After my next marathon I will have focused my training for 6-years solely on marathons – i.e. running 5K and 10K races only for fun. Following similar logic as what you outline, my coach has strongly recommended that for six months I follow a speed-focused training plan targeting shorter distance races. So, hopefully we’ll both progress our top-end speed and running form, which should pay dividends (and, even if not it’ll be good to mix things up a bit).
Great choice! I know tons of people who aren’t interested in doing anything shorter than marathons, so I totally get the head about that, but variety definitely makes life more fun! And after 6 years of the long stuff, I predict you’ll see some dramatic improvements that you can take back to the marathon for even better long distance results.
Glad to hear you recovered so quickly! I think my recovery has been slightly slower, but better than I expected. Sounds like you have a good plan! Carlsbad is a great race, and the short race training cycle will give a nice change of pace.
Yay, glad to hear you’re coming back better than expected! I clink my glass to you for one more “Halfs rock!” sentiment.
Sounds like a great plan…I might do broad street again next year too…not sure yet
Did you check out your pics?
Cool on potential Broad St. My photos are a yawn. Yours are great though, thanks for the heads-up.
Ahahaha I realized there’s a pic of my sister slapping me to slow down :P
Two of my favorite broads running the Broad. Can’t wait to hear all about it!
I’m going to be seeing you before then, just 2 months to go! Looking forward to hanging with you, Barb.
What will you do in the summer?
It seems like racing is not a good idea (unless you dial it way back). Maybe strength building?
- rovatti
God Rovatti, I really dread it because I don’t want to lose anything. I’m trying to keep positive and think that by that time I’ll have more experience at not racing to the Nth degree, so I won’t be tempted to red-line, or I won’t race at all and just keep the training up.
I think I’ll be faster overall so I’ll be able to relax more with the resulting warmer paces and maybe with all that speed stuff, it’ll be less of a jarring difference. Also, the summer of 2009 fine for me, though the weather was better, so I’m crossing fingers for a less sweltering season. It could happen.
It’ll be so fun to dial down and zip things up with those 5K/10Ks! I bet the focus on shorter stuff will have some interesting positive effects on your endurance for longer distances, too (if and when you build back up to longer distances after the “shortie race” cycles).
I’m in total agreement with you Cathleen, that it will have great positive effects when I go back to Halfs in the Fall. I think everything we do is intertwined that way, building on what comes before.
“Even shorter races than halfs”. Hmm, so half-marathons are by implication short. Whatever could she mean?
I’m just pulling your chain. This does sound like a good plan. How do you distribute those 60 miles in the week?
The 60 are in 6 or 7 days. I’ll split it up the same as ever, though I haven’t thought about what I’ll be doing yet, I just penciled in this next 8-week section for the Half, so I have time to mull over it. It’ll be the same deal of tempo, intervals, MLR and LR though.
Like Jim, I was coughing a bit when I saw that “even shorter than…” bit. Half marathons seem massively long to me. I’m thinking about running races even shorter than the 5k!
Looks like a good plan (I like the idea of “cyclettes” by the way). Mixing things up produces a variety of stimulus for different energy systems. I’m thinking the body has a tendency towards inertia. If we run the same training cycles over and over the body becomes comfortable with them and wants to get slower, not faster. Having dramatic changes in training will jolt the body out of this inertia.
Lol, the reference to shorter races is ONLY because of all the ribbing I’ve had about moving down from Fulls. And now that a few friends are doing Ultras, the Half is even shorter in comparison. But you are totally right, there are several races shorter than 5ks (and it’s cool that you’re thinking of doing them!). Agreed about mixing up training plans, Hudson writes about that in his book, to keep things changing and growing.