Wednesday, October 1

Turning the Page

My jaunt on Monday was relaxed, at best. After raising the bar during my long-run on Sunday, my legs were heavy and unresponsive as I meandered down the Lochside Trail. There is a fork that I usually reach after running between 9’ to 10’; I set a new benchmark crossing a good minute behind.

Pure bliss.

As I described to a friend this morning, during yesterday’s run I turned a figurative page in my training and started a new chapter. Nothing profound, but I felt better than I had during the previous few months. It could have been the weather, my new shoes or even the route but regardless, I felt good about my stride and my minute repeats might well have been kilometers.

This morning I didn’t expect much from my legs, and during the first few minutes they lived down to my expectation. But after a few unavoidable hills, the pins loosened up and I surprised even myself.

Still, I decided to forego the strides this time around.

Training:

Monday: EZ 28:33 with 6x gentle strides
Tuesday: 1:08:22 with 12x1’ (1’)
Wednesday: easy 36:47

2 comments:

Cliff said...

Hi Michael,

Perhaps this is a question, you might have answer before..how often do you run on trail?

It seems that majority of your training is done on dirt.

Are you building up for Boston? Or are you waiting for a bit before training for it?

Michael said...

I try and run my weekend jaunts on trails and stick to the roads during the week (for the most part). Not only is Victoria blessed with some of the best trails in BC/Canada for all I know, but it a) keeps it fun and entertaining, b) builds strength, and c) doesn't kill my legs like the road does. Closer to a big race, i.e. Boston, I'll run more of my long runs on the road but until then the trails are too much fun.

I'm not building for Boston at the moment. I'm going to do a few shorter races (both XC and road) over the next 2 months. I'll start getting marathon specific in January.

What do you do re: trails? How is your training? What next after the marathon or is it too early to ask?