Thursday, November 11, 2010

It's Foggy, But A Plan Is materializing

I've been runner lazy lately and even though a break is well deserved at times, my brain still needs to rationalize it......fit it into some type of plan so I have an "excuse" to rest up a bit.

2010 has been a fair year for me as I have experienced many new things, running Mount Washington being one of them. Unfortunately, I wasn't very prepared for that race, so luckily my only goal was to finish.

My original plan was to use Mt Washington as a stepping stone to some bigger and more exciting finishes. Perhaps Pr-ing The Breaker, the Bruiser then capping the year with either a fast 5k,10k or something like Stone Cat marathon or possibly even the 50

I had it in my head to do a 50 miler this year and it never materialized.....partly because I didn't implement any sort of plan and also because of my knee injury from the Bruiser.

At the time, I didn't think the knee would put the brakes on my running like it did....kind of strange actually. Was it really the knee or was I using it as an excuse for derailing my goals? The thing I did realize is that I have to have some type of goal or plan, otherwise I will run around blindly and accomplish very little.

I thought about the ab challenge for about 3 seconds, then I came to my senses and realized that I didn't have a six pack at age 20....age 30...age 40....or at age 50......so thinking I could find one now (at 54) is as much a fantasy as winning any race I enter. Sure it is exciting to think about, but I do have to be realistic....I have a thirty pack and would be lucky through massive discipline and training to get that down to a twelve pack.

So, anyway, I took the date of the Pineland 50 and worked my way back to see how it would fit in for a winter/spring schedule. It is actually 30 weeks away which gives me a lot of leeway for training.

At this point, I have 10 weeks of what ever I want type running and training before I would start working on base. This feels like a good fit to me, I can run in pleasure mode, do some cross training and snow shoeing, get past the holidays and be fresh to start a training schedule the first week of January.

Whatever I do during the prebase 10 weeks would be a great jumpstart for the training schedule. As long as I am healthy and the training goes as planned, I will be running the 50 miler in May. It feels good to make that decision, I hope it works out.

2 comments:

Sparkplug said...

Sometimes the body does just need a break. Don't feel bad! That being said, I always find I work better if I have a goal race to work towards. Sounds like you've found one :-) Wow! The 50. Awesome!

Laurel said...

From one temporary running slacker to another, I also set myself a goal race (that calls for strengths I don't naturally have ...leg speed on fairly easy terrain.) I then enlisted the help of a "coach". Suddenly I am back to a regular running routine and being disciplined about getting out there and doing what my plan calls for. If the goal race isn't enough to get you going, try to get a friend to play "coach" to help lay out the plan. Then e-mail him your training log each week. I don't know about you, but I hate to disappoint anyone so I make sure I do the planned workouts! We're...I mean YOU'RE going to knock 'em dead at Pineland!