Be Careful What You Wish For.

I had a brilliant plan last week. To start with, I have been doing an (almost)daily workout routine the is geared towards the core, targeting the abs and toning with weights. My hope was to strengthen up the core to run better and faster trails.

My weekend plan was to do my core workout Friday morning, a 6 mile hill workout Friday night, a more intense core workout Saturday morning, volunteer at the Close to Coast for Jeff (who by the way, did another amazing job as RD), then cap off the day with a long trail run on tired legs and core.

I figured it would be tough but quite honestly I felt for sure I would be able to run at least a couple hours in the tired state. It didn't workout quite as planned and I only pulled off a run of about one hour.

My legs were so tired from the hill workout that I couldn't even get my heart rate up to the 75-85% (145-158) instead I only averaged 137-138 for the first 4 miles. My legs were just shot. I pickup the speed a bit in the last two miles, but overall it was a bit disappointing.

I am so far behind last year as by this time I was easily pulling off 2 and 3 hour runs. I am a bit worried about my spring races and feel that a 50 miler (or even a 50k)at Pineland is probably out of the picture unless I can gear up in the next two months and get some good long runs in.

Though I can feel the difference in my core, it seems it has done nothing up till now to strengthen my running. I have actually gained weight as of late but some of that may be muscle. Working on core and base instead of speed and distance may have been a mistake this year. I guess time will tell.

02/09/10 core, ab, weight --2 miles
02/10/10 core, ab, weight --2 miles
02/11/10 core, ab, weights --2 miles
02/12/10 core, ab, weights --2 miles
02/12/10 hill workout 6 miles 10% grade 3-4 speed, 1:09:53 (11:39 pace)
02/12/10 1/2 mile cooldown
02/13/10 core, ab, weight (more intense)---2 miles
02/13/10 Trail (bradbury) 5.4 miles, 1:06:15 (12:17 pace)
02/13/10 Trail cooldown .75 miles
02/14/10 Valentine breakfast...ate enough to counteract the whole weeks workout.