Training plans

Here is the schedule I have been looking at and I am now in need to really begin working to catch up to it for Chippewa:

Week Of	Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Miles
02/20/12	10	0	2	4	6	0	14	8	34
02/27/12	9	0	4	4	6	0	16	10	40
03/05/12	8	0	4	6	6	0	18	10	44
03/12/12	7	0	4	6	8	0	20	10	48
03/19/12	6	0	4	8	6	0	10	8	36
03/26/12	5	0	4	8	8	0	22	10	52
04/02/12	4	0	4	10	8	0	22	10	54
04/09/12	3	0	4	10	8	0	24	10	56
04/16/12	2	0	4	10	6	0	10	8	38
04/23/12	1	4	3	2	0	0	50K ultra	0	40

If I was on track, I need to run 14 miles for my long run and I would have run 12 miles during the work week and 8 miles on the other weekend day. My reality is 4 miles during the week, 3 miles yesterday and I do plan to go for 14 today,  so not completely off track nor am I where I should be.

On yesterday's run I was thinking about my other races for the year and how I am planning on Afton and Superior. How I want to finish it Superior and the work I need to accomplish between now and then to be able to do so. I thought about the training I would be doing so Afton popped in my head and it dawned on me that I volunteered last year and dropped out the previous 2 years, all because of injuries and when I entered Superior 2 years ago, I was also a little bit injured and proceeded to add to my injuries. So for this year my goal is to get to the starting line of all of my races healthy and trained.

So it begins today by getting in a long run of ~14 miles without doing any harm. Then next week I work to get back on plan and stay there all the way Chippewa.

Week in review

A couple weeks back I said I would shoot for 4 days of running and get in a long run of 3 hours. Well that didn't exactly happen, I ran 3 days and got in 2 hours and this past week I have yet to run. I have continued to work on my core, strength and flexibility and I do plan on running yet today.

Back to that last longish run, I decided after an hour of running that I wasn't going to do Zumbro. My goal for the year is finishing what I started 2 years ago at Superior and I need to stay healthy and ramping up my mileage for Zumbro just wouldn't be smart. Have I ruled it out completely, of course not, my common sense says no, my heart still says do it. Oh the internal struggles of an under training running.

And this week I allowed myself to step back yet again, why another step  back week. Well, I volunteered two evenings and then yesterday spent the afternoon helping out with the robot. On Saturday, I also made a priority of going to bible study and looking at a couple of townhouses with my wife and daughter (she is looking to buy her first house :-), could I have gotten a run in, yes in the evening I could have but I did not. I will admit if it had been 50+ degrees and the trails were clear I would have made it out the door.

The good news for my running is that this is the last intense week for me helping out the robotics team and because of work I will only be able to assist next weekend and they might be done by then. This past week was also my first one with the new job (same company) and I really enjoyed getting into the new routine, it just turned out that a few of the days were a little longer. I do think as I work into a new job routine I will get in my runs just not sure which days or when. For this week though, I just didn't make it happen. From my view, stepping back when overloaded with things is simply a part of keeping priorities in balance and thus far for this year my running has not been able to be a high priority.

For this upcoming week I expect that things will work out better and that within a few weeks I will find a new routine for running with Chippewa being the short term goal.