The New Coach

I am going to try and be better about keeping this blog updated this summer but bear with me, life is (a very good kind of) super hectic lately and I have a lot on my plate.

Since 2004 I have kind of been winding my way aimlessly through marathon, triathlon, and ultra training. Some things I have done right and others in retrospect I realize could likely have been done better. Each season I learn a bit more and realize where I have missed out or what I could have done better. But I have gotten to the point where I really would like to avoid any missteps and cash in on my hard work soon. To this extent I am going to be working with a coach this year.

My friend and one of many SERC mentors GA has hinted at wanting to coach me over the past year and I have finally taken him up on his offer. He has been working with my friend BB and it has obviously made a difference for her so I am looking forward to the results of some hard focused training this year. Training started last week and so far so good. The first track workout was easier than I expected but no shocker the intensity already bumped up a little this week.

So far nothing far out there compared to what I should have been doing all along. I think the major help will be having someone who can realize my potential better than I can and can focus on the elements of my training that will be most beneficial in helping me to reach my goals. I have some confidence issues and I really think having a coach to tell me what the goal is every race and workout will help me to just do it, rather than wondering if I can do it and coming up short. I have always responded well to regimented workouts from coaches in the past as long as they were tailored to my abilities so I am excited to get to work.

I'll try to be better about posting workouts and mileage so you can see what I am up to with coach over the next months and year.

5-11 through 5-17 (55 Miles)
Monday- 7 Easy 8:03 pace
Tuesday- 7 on the track (workout detailed below)
Wednesday- 4 Easy 8:37 pace
Thursday- Tempo 5 miles (7:02 pace), 8 miles total
Friday- 6 easy 8:27 pace
Saturday- 3 easy 9:12 pace
Sunday- 13.1 Race+ 7.5 miles Easy (10 minute pace) between the warm up and pacing GP
*Also did one hour of Yoga Thursday Night and a few days of light core and upper body exercises

Details on the key workouts below:

Track Workout #1 with Coach:

Goal on this one was to start to learn my paces.

Couple of easy laps then one mile warm up at 7:28 followed by 4*100 strides then 8*400, and 1600 hard.

I ran with coach and BB on these but ran on the outside of lane one at coaches shoulder so that I would at least feel like I was running a little faster :) He let us loose on number 7 with instruction to run the same pace. I stayed on the outside but still went too fast so he ran with us again on number 8. All of those were with 200 recovery jogs/90 second rests then one lap easy followed by the mile at hard effort, he just told me to go out at a pace I could hold for the whole mile and that he would tell me if I was going too slow. Well my math skillz suck so when coach told me I slowed down the second lap of the mile I thought I had really slowed down so I may have upped the effort a wee bit too much the last two laps :) Everything felt pretty good, a nice quality workout but nothing that made me feel wasted.

400s:
1:34
1:33
1:31
1:31
1:31
1:31
1:29 oops
1:32

Mile 6:18 (1:36, 1:37, 1:32,1:32)

Tempo:

Ran this one with CV and the initial goal was to run 7:20 and pick up the pace if I felt good. I wasn't sure how I would react to a 5 mile tempo since my tempos did not go well before Boston and I hadn't run a tempo in several weeks. Turns out backing off the pace a bit resulted in a much better (mental) workout for me. CV and I were really consistent even into the headwind on the way back and I felt pretty good about the effort.

7:04.3
7:01.9
7:04.9
6:57.3
7:02.4

Half Marathon:

We just did a mini one day taper for the half and the goal was to get used to running sub 7 for 10 miles since I have yet to do that. To that effect coach told me to go out with Frank and stay with him through mile 10 then hold pace if it felt okay or back off if it didn't. Obviously that went really well ending in a surprise 4:30 PR and my best race PR of any distance.