Last weekend I ran the Melissa’s Road Race 22km with Kim, and now I’m feeling motivated to do another half marathon on my own. Well, Kim will be running too but we’ll be running our own races instead of beside each other like we did at Melissa’s. All summer, I was trying to prepare for the bike leg of Challenge Penticton and did very little running until early in September. Most of this running consisted of running with Kim on some of her training runs. I thought that would be a good way to ease my way back into running without pushing too hard, as I would inevitably do if I were to run on my own after a long running lay-off. So anyway, here I am a few days after Melissa’s and less than two weeks from the BMO Okanagan half-marathon, and I’m starting to train on my own to try to get a decent time at this race.
Two weeks isn’t much, so I have no illusions of grabbing a new PB but I would still like to do well. I’m setting a somewhat realistic goal of running my second fastest half marathon. That sounds like I’m reaching, but really I’ve only run three of them and my fastest was about five minutes faster than the other two. My PB was achieved on my second half-marathon, and the third ended up being very close to the same time as my first because I went out way too hard trying to PB again. Figures! So yeah, my game-plan this time around is to start out at a reasonably sustainable pace and not really pushing too hard. Then if the legs are being agreeable I can pick up the pace on the back half of the run and slide across the finish line with a time in-between my PB and the other two. But with only two weeks to prepare, how do I plan to do this?!
Well it’s kind of straight-forward and it’s also a bit of an experiment. One of my colleagues is a pretty fast runner (2:35 marathon PB!), and recommended that I try doing some 5-10 minute repeats at just above my goal pace with 3-4 minutes of easy running in between each interval. If I do 3-4 of those per workout to start that would probably give me the most bang for my effort. Last night I tried this workout for the first time and only did 2 efforts because I didn’t have enough time, but I’ll do the workout again early next week to give myself enough time to recover before the race. I’ll do the usual long, slow run on the weekend – I’ve already got 22km from last weekend, so this weekend I’ll go with about 20km. I’ll also throw in a couple of shorter runs at a moderate-easy pace and a tempo run later this week for about 12-13km. I’ll want the legs to be nice and loose for the race on October 13th so I’ll make sure that any runs after next Wednesday are at an easy pace. I’ll also foam roll my calves, quads and IT bands every night between now and then. This is how I envision it:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 2×7 min repeats – DONE
Wednesday: Easy run 6km (postponed due to cold, raining Edmonton weather)
Thursday: 13km Tempo
Friday: Easy run 6km
Saturday: Long, slow 20km
Sunday: Rest
Monday: 3×8 min repeats
Tuesday: Easy run 8km
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Easy run 6km
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 15-20 min Easy run with 4-5 20sec strides
Sunday: BMO Okanagan Half-Marathon!
There, so I’ve got less than two weeks and I’ve got a plan! I’ll try to keep things updated here as it gets closer to the race. Wish me luck!
