Switching Gears

Howdy, y'all!

Things have been a bit busy on the personal front, but running has been coming along alright also. A couple of misses here and there, but overall I have been keeping 6-6-10 schedule and also managed to raise it to 6-6-13.  As of last week another milestone is behind. The number of workouts logged by MapMyRun crossed 200 since I started using the app. Miles run stands at 1527.77 (2444 km) which was run in 248 hours 40 minutes. That is more than half way across the United States (New York to Los Angeles), or Thiruvananthapuram to Kolkata, in about 10 days and 8 hours :-)  Calories burned is 197,242.

Marathon countdown has started. Another 48 runs and if all goes well I should be at the start line. I am switching gears to a structured training plan. The specific plan I am planning to follow is called FIRST (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training) and is detailed in the book Run Less, Run Faster by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr, Ray Moss and Amby Burfoot. It requires three runs a week and  cross training 2-3 remaining days.  There is a multitude of training plans for the marathons. The reason I chose this one is that it involves only three runs a week. Three weekly runs goes well with my current run schedule, and I am really not excited about running on the heavily crowned roads in our neighborhood any more than I have to.  Most other programs would have me run four, five and six days a week accumulating a lot of mileage.  That doesn't mean this training plan is easy. I had a taste of it today in my first training run.  My long runs have been at 13 miles, but this plan cut it to 10 miles (yay!) but needed me to run at 9:30 per mile :( That pace is a bit ambitious for me. In the hot and humid temperature today I wasn't sure I can do it, but gave it a try anyway. I did manage 9:28 but had to work really hard for it.  Anyway, it is just one data point. The remaining two runs is a interval run and a tempo run, both at specified challenging paces. If I don't hit the target paces then the plan may have to be tuned - or I may have to work harder. The point is that the plan is not an easy plan because it involves fewer runs and miles.  Each run has a specific purpose or goal and working at a specific intensity is required to accomplish that. The interval run is focused on improving VO2Max, the tempo run for improving lactate threshold, and the long run to improve endurance at the targeted marathon pace.  Similarly, cross training also comes with specified intensities.

Don't take it easy. Keep at it.

If I can run, u can run