Daily details:
Sa: 5
Su: 6
Mo: 5
Tu: 3 mi. tempo @ 6:25/mi. (8 total)
We: 10
Th: 6
Fr: 8
Sa: 5
Su: 12
Week total: 54
Mo: 5
Tu: 8 (plus 6 strides)
We: 11
Th: 6
Fr: 9
Sa: 6
Su: 15
Week total: 60
Mo: 5
Tu: 11
We: 6
Th: 3 mi. tempo @ 6:25/mi. (8 total)
Fr: 12
Sa: 6
Su: 17
Week total: 65
Mo: 5
Tu: 8 (plus 10 strides)
We: 10
Th: 6
Fr: 12
Sa: 6
Su: 16
Week total: 63
Month total: 253
With the Spring semester over and no races on my calendar, I switched back with pleasure this month to base training: running every day, almost all easy, gradually building mileage. Only once each week did I do any kind of faster running: every other week I did a 3-mile tempo run, and in the other weeks I did some strides after my run. My basic pattern has been two medium-long runs, one "speed" day, and one long run, with recovery days in between. I adopted this pattern from the Pfitzinger and Douglas book, Advanced Marathoning, because I found myself gravitating toward it naturally this Spring. In the recent past I had done (at most) two harder runs per week, with two or three easy days separating them. Now I'm mostly alternating hard/easy days, and the easy days are easier than in the past. I'm generally running slower now altogether, because it's summer and I'm building mileage; but my easy days are particularly slow, and they'll remain shorter than they had in the past even as my weekly mileage continues to increase. This enables me to get in three longer (but only one truly long) run each week, which suits my preference for emphasizing longer distances. I'm also doing those non-recovery runs on hillier terrain than I normally did in the past (except for when I've been in Greece). One medium-long run each week occurs the day after my speed day, which means that I start out a bit fatigued (from a tempo run) or sore (from strides) from the day before. I'm adapting well to this new pattern and plan to stick with it as I continue gradually turning up the daily numbers. Last year, although I was still doing races in June, I ran almost exactly the same number of miles as I did this June. But then I went to Greece on July 4, and my weekly mileage got stuck in the mid-60's as I struggled with the hills there. This year I'll head to Greece 3 weeks later, and I'm already running regularly on what hills there are in DC (mainly in Rock Creek Park). So I hope to get my weekly mileage up higher before heading to Greece this time around and to be able to maintain that higher mileage when I get there. I'm not concerned with speed right now - the tempos and strides are sufficient. It's too humid here to (want to) run very fast anyway. So I'm doing the Lydiard thing and focusing on strength this summer, especially early summer. When I feel good, I might pick up the pace at the end of a run to the vicinity of marathon pace for a little while, and I'll do some more of that as the summer wears on. The tempo runs will get longer as summer wears on too. But I'll stay away from faster stuff and from trying to sustain those paces for longer distances until late August. I've now posted almost all of the Fall races I intend to do under "upcoming races," except for the Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon, whose registration opens late. I plan to do that and the Leesburg 20k as marathon-pace training runs. The others I hope to race all-out. After the Philadelphia Marathon, I hereby declare that I will take two weeks entirely off from running. Right now, though, I'm really enjoying rambling around Rock Creek Park, in spite of dew points in the 70's.
