Training Talk: Back in Shape, Finally

Today marks exactly 5 weeks of running for Emily and me since we returned from our 100% running-free honeymoon. During that time, Emily has been following the workout schedule that I wrote up for her: a nice, conservative plan involving gradually increasing intensity and volume. I, on the other hand, jumped up to 99 miles during my 2nd week of running. Why? Because I am not good at following my own advice. And I’m a little dumb sometimes.

But, it could be a lot worse. Luckily, getting injured from sudden increases in volume is NOT one of my weaknesses. So, I trucked through 99 miles that first full week, then dropped a bit to 91, then back up to 106, then 100 miles last week. During that time, I’ve mostly felt a little sluggish, and just generally out of shape. That started to turn around at the beginning of last week: I ran the last 8ish miles of my 15 mile run at my parents’ house in Houston at about 6:35 pace. Then on Tuesday I headed over to McAllister Park for one of my staple workouts: 1 on, 1 off fartlek for 2 laps of the park, or a total of 3.7 miles. I averaged 5:41 pace for the whole thing, which is fairly close to how fast I’ve done it when I’ve been in my best shape (I averaged 5:37 pace for that workout last spring, 11 days before I ran my 5k PR of 15:16). Thursday was a solid double of progressive run in the morning, sprints in the afternoon.

Then this morning, I finished turning the corner: I set out to do a “fastish” long run of 18 miles at anywhere from 6:35 to 6:45 pace. I hit the first mile in 7:08 - which is pretty damn fast for me at 6am - and hit 4 miles in 26:49, already 6:42 pace. By the time I got to the halfway mark, I was down to 6:30 pace, and without any noticeable increase in effort. I hit the last 9 miles in 54:26, or about 6:03 pace. The whole run was 18 miles in just a little under 1 hour and 53 minutes, a total average of 6:16 pace. I can’t remember the last time I was able to just relax and click down the pace like that, and it’s got me really excited about the next few months of training. So let’s hear it for a little bit of patience, because you never know when all the training you’ve done will start to pay off. With this little bit of confirmation that things are going well, it’s time to start really getting serious with training again, and see if I can do what it takes to break through to a new level this fall.