The Spring of Speed!

I'm sort of obsessed with my new McMillan plan for spring.

Before the Houston Marathon earlier this month, I mentioned that my husband asked me not to train for another marathon until summer. So I decided that for the rest of this winter and into spring I will concentrate on shorter races and on getting faster. Once Houston was over, I ordered my third custom plan from McMillan Running (McMillan wrote my plans for both Houston and the Top of Utah Marathon last September; I enjoyed and had good results from both plans).

One of the questions you answer for McMillan ahead of getting your plan is which race you want to target. Since it's not about a marathon and qualifying for Boston this time, I put a whole bunch of races ranging from 5K to half-marathon on there and told him to pick, keeping in mind my main goal of gaining speed without losing too much endurance. I submitted the questionnaire, asking for a start date for the plan of Monday, Feb. 6....and then I waited. I couldn't sign up for any races until the plan arrived, because I didn't know which of the ones I suggested McMillan would choose. Instead, I've been concentrating on gradually increasing the length of my recovery runs and on sleeping well.

Today, at last, the plan arrived. I've been poring over it and calling it "My precious." And I know what my spring race schedule looks like at last! Here's what's on the docket:

The Snowman Stampede 5 Mile--Feb. 18
The Platte River Half Marathon--April 15
Boulder Distance Classic 15K--April 28 (guaranteed PR; I've never done a 15K)
Flat-Out 5K or Westminster Women's Classic 5K--May 13 (the Flat-Out 5K hasn't been scheduled yet, but I'm hoping it will happen that Saturday; if it doesn't, I'll go to Westminster)
Bolder Boulder 10K--May 28

The training looks like a nice switch-up from marathon prep, with things I haven't done in a while like 400-meter intervals and 90-minute progression runs in there. I'm hoping that not only will the frequent races leave me faster (relatively) and fired-up, but also fit going into summer prep for a fall marathon. At that time, if I work hard and stay lucky and humble, I hope to be able to run my Boston qualifying time of 3:44:59 or better at last.

Meanwhile, bring on the Spring of Speed!

My McMillan Plan!

This morning I ran the second long run on my marathon plan from McMillan Running. McMillan has me running for time rather than distance on my runs, so I did about 12.5 miles in two hours. I'm supposed to take the pace nice and easy (for now) but incorporate hills to get my body used to an even effort on all terrain. And that's just what I did, feeling good for the entire two hours (except for some potty stops--more on that below).

My new plan, because it was written with my past training in mind, resembles my FIRST training quite closely, at least on the surface. I'm in what McMillan calls the "pre-marathon" phase of the cycle. Unlike many marathon programs, which ramp up distance early and then work on speed closer to the race, this program works on speed in the early weeks and on distance closer to the race. The theory is that for a marathon (unlike a 5K or 10K) the endurance part is the most important but that runners on most programs hit their endurance peaks too early for their races because of the later shift to speedwork. For more on this, here's Greg McMillan's article on the theory behind it.

Despite the running-for-time-stedda-miles component, my weekly mileage is up (27 miles last week, 29 miles this week and climbing in the week ahead). The speedwork (so far in the form of stride drills and fartleks) has been hard but fun. I'm still doing one day of cross-training (I just think it's better for my body), but the other one has been replaced with an easy run. I'm trying to be good about stretching after every run, and I'm doing a weight-training class twice a week (no bootcamp for the time being--I think I'm getting plenty of cardio from my running at this point).

I'll be curious to see how this works for me and my Sept. 17 Top of Utah Marathon. I have a test race on July 17 in the ZOOMA Women's Half-Marathon. This coming weekend we are traveling to Missouri for my 20th high-school reunion, so the long run will be done at sea level (though I fear the humidity and heat will wipe out any low-altitude advantage I might have!).

Potty Update: It's official: I'm calling a gastroenterologist this week. Today's long run featured five trips to the bathroom--two at home, two in a golf course port-a-john and one at a friendly 7-11. Five is too many. And every other run I did this week involved a bathroom stop, too. I need to get this fixed. I'm sick of it.

Here's today's run (and you can scroll back to see older ones, including the Garmin's take on the Bolder Boulder):