My Unscheduled Rest WEEK…

Well I was looking forward to this week of training. I am steadily building my mileage and this week wasn’t really going to offer any terribly hard workouts with my MLR consisting of 8-10 miles with some strides and some sprints and my LR having 13 miles with 20x45 second runs at 3k pace. My biggest worry for the week was supposed to be not running more than I had planned and having to move from one tent to another. While in the ‘interim’ tent, I knew my running would be thrown off because I would be with new people in a new place. However, I was given something else to think about when I woke up Wednesday morning with news of my mother having throat cancer and my partner having some unknown problem that has gotten her sent to the hospital; I’m not going to name any illness and speak it into fruition. Well both of those things took me for a quick emotional ride. I ran the next two easy days a little faster than I should have; maybe a lot faster than I should have. I started putting in more hours at work to keep my mind busy as well. I was actually able to keep my running schedule intact, save for intensity.

Then came the move, I was told to move “right away,” as my tent was about to come down. Oops, I guess someone forgot to tell me that my time was up(?). Therefore, I took my time and packed everything up somewhat neatly. Then I came back and asked some co-workers to help me move. Have I mentioned how much I hate moving? Now I am living out of boxes and running a little here and there. I have overslept the last two mornings in a row and here in the desert, normal folks don’t run outside past 7AM, and abnormal folks don’t run outside past 8AM. So, you can imagine my thought process when I got up at 730AM drowsy, and de-hydrated. With a late wake-up and inevitable hot weather run, my choices are: run short, run on the Dreadmill, not run at all. So far, I’ve managed option #1 twice and I’m 0-0 on the other two choices. As a result though, I did miss my MLR, settling for a measly five miles. I’m only a little behind on my mileage for the week, but I think I’ll let it past. Besides next week’s training brings the ‘fun’ back…

Upcoming Quality Workouts

Tuesday (15Jun2010): 4-5 mile moderate run including 4x 100m increasing effort strides w/1 min jog rests. Run the first stride @ 5k effort and the last stride @ mile effort. Full recovery then 6-8 x 15 sec sprints w/1-2 min recoveries

Thursday (17Jun2010): 7 mile moderate run including 15 min @ LT effort then without rest run 10 min @ HM effort. 15 min jog recovery then 4 x 75 sec hills @ 3k effort w/90 sec jog rests

and…

Sunday (20Jun2010): 15-16 mile moderate run including 30 min progression run beginning at moderate effort and running the last few minutes @ 10k effort. Full recovery then 8-10 x 1 min @ 3k effort w/1 min jog rests

Note: Got a question on Quality vs. Quantity? Check out this thread on RWOL. Pretty interesting take on weekly/monthly/yearly mileage and then there are those who throw all the numbers to the wind..

"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."

~Bill Dellinger, Legendary Oregon coach