End of Week Four (11/30/07)

At the end of Week Four I am just now starting to feel like I have come back to the decent running shape. I have never been a high mileage runner, but I always like to think that I can rip off a decent 5 miler at any time and could make it through a slow 10 miler. At the beginning of Week One, I was struggling to make it through the 3 milers. It seems about right for me that fours weeks of consistent running would get me back. I am probably right now at the point I should have been at the start of my training; but there is nothing I can do about that.

All miles are good miles, but I have a bias in my brain that disqualifies anything less than 3 miles as not really much of a run. I know that’s not right, but on the other hand, I consider a good 5 miler as real training. At one point in 2006, I had a streak of weeks where I would run 5 miles on the treadmill every Friday morning. Each week, I would increase the pace by .1 MPH. If it were not for the Crash, I could give you all the details. But the spreadsheet in my brain seems to remember that I finished up about 10 consecutive Fridays with a treadmill 5 miler in about 38:30.

Week Four was my first chance to go the 5 mile distance in my plan. The week calls for 18 total miles, alternating between 4 and 5 mile runs. After the slow start in Week One, I have now clicked off three straight weeks of making all my runs and all my miles. Total plan miles was 18,, I ran them all.

Overall, my blended pace of 9:32 was a modest improvement in my pace over Week Three. I am now fully beyond the disillusionment of running all these Base miles at Marathon Pace (MP). I’m pretty sure that on any given day, I could run my miles at MP. However, I have come to the realization, that to stay injury free, it would not be smart to do so.

Sunday was an inspiring workout. Madeline and I ran the Media 5 Miler course. The course is challenging and fun. It winds through the town and brings you through State Street area twice. The run in Media was a good MP workout (8:58 pace). The hills and weather were a welcome respite from the treadmill where I would be the rest of the week.

I needed to pick up Danny at a concert on Wednesday evening and knew that it would be very late when I got home. So, I skipped my run on Wednesday morning in favor of running Wednesday night while I waited for the concert to be over. For some reason, the evening run seemed easier that usual. It might have been due to the time of the day. Most of my runs are very early in the morning and can be very stiff at first. On this evening run, as soon as I started, it felt easier than it should have been.

Next week, my schedule call for four runs of 5 miles each. It is going to feel great to do a twenty mile week.

Over this past week, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my transition from Base to Endurance. I’m not sure if I want to make the switch after Week Five (4x5 miles = 20 total) or after Week Seven (4x6 miles = 24 total). My original plan was to make the move after Week Six (5,6,5,6 = 22 miles). But for some reason my original plan doesn’t look symmetrical. Once I go to Endurance, I will start the dreaded Long Runs, but also plan to cut back to three runs per week. I think more about this later.