I know I've been MIA for a little bit. I was actually on vacation last week though didn't do anything. I have four weeks of vacation I have to use before years end and thought I should take a week off now to get it out of the way. I've run a couple of times since the last marathon including a 12 mile long run last Sunday. I'll probably continue some shorter runs this week.
So I've been thinking long and hard about what to do next. I had mentioned before about trying to do a marathon on December 2 in either California or Arizona but don't think it will be that productive. I never really was too happy with my LT runs this training cycle and didn't see the improvements that I was hoping to see. I don't think my LT is where it should be for a 3:10 marathon and don't want to fly to the other side of the continent to subsequently have that confirmed. Though I will admit that the prospects of an 1800 foot elevation drop from start to finish at the Tucson marathon does sound appealing.
One thing that is bothering me is that I haven't set a PR in the marathon this year. I've unofficially set PR's in the 5k, 10k and half while running races of longer distances, but the Boston or Bust attitude has preventing me from reaching the modest goal of improving over my time of last year which I'm confident I could do if I ran another one. There is another marathon in this area in two weeks time and I contemplated doing that just for the sake of aiming for a PR, but think I"m probably risking injury by attempting another one so soon.
So the plan is no longer to BQ in 2007, but I'm still hoping to qualify for Boston 2008 early next year. The Last Chance for Boston marathon is on February 17. The race consists of 26 laps of a 1 mile course. Completely flat and well marked, it basically only serves one purpose of getting people a BQ time. I'm not saying that I'm going to do that one as there are a number of other ones on that date, but it sounds more dramatic if I imply that's the one I'm aiming for.
In terms of the training plan, I don't think I'm going to do Pfitz this time as I don't think his plan has enough LT work in it which is what I need to improve upon. I've looked at the Smart Coach plan on the Runner's World website which generates a nice plan with a good mix of different things. I've also ordered the Daniels Running Formula book to hopefully give me some further options.
16 weeks to Feburary 17 begins this Sunday so here's to running in the snow and frozen water bottles!!
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6 comments:
A week off and back at it, eh? I don't know how you do it during the winter! I reserve judgment on Pftizinger but I do agree that the LTs were tough and I was really glad they were over. Maybe that's a bad thing cause they do you lots of good...
I used to live near that Last Chance race. Sounds unique, that's for sure!
Hello stranger! I was wondering what happened to you. :)
You may not have achieved your BQ this year but you accomplished a LOT in training, speed, and racing other distances. That BQ is not going to be easy to get and you've proved that you are willing to do what it takes. You'll get it, hang in there.
I agree you should wait till Feb. to run another marathon, and that Last Chance race sounds pretty cool. There's some pretty good things about a loop course: consistant crowd, aid station is predictable, etc. Keep up the good work and enjoy winter training! :)
Plan B sounds awesome, training in the winter is not that bad (my memory refuse to remember all the bad details!)
Good luck on your next BQ attempt
Are you sure it's LT work and not just more time to train that you need? You ran a 3:17 last year, but then went chasing a 3:05 (at least that's what a 1:33 first half means) and ran a 3:27. You're doing all right. I think that the Pfitzinger plan is a good one and you don't need to tweak too much, you just need another training cycle.
Could be that I just need more training time, but I really think it's the LT. At the beginning of this training cycle, my LT was quite bad due to injury and a lot of slow running. I don't think it was even at the 3:17 marathon pace that I did last year so a lot of this year has been spent get trying to get it to where it was last year.
-Fran
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