In With The New

Well, 2009 ended without any Year-In-Review posts. You're welcome, dear reader. ;-)

Running-wise, I could not have asked for much more from 2009. I qualified for Boston. I PRed at every race distance. I stayed injury-free. I "coached" other runners preparing for a 5K. I enjoyed virtually every step of every run I took. Oh yeah, and I went to a running-related modeling casting call. As far as I know, I did not get the job. Good thing I didn't turn in my bar card on December 17th.

The family got away to Quebec for a few days between Christmas and New Year's, so I was largely (and blissfully) offline.

So, here we are, with a toe into a new year, and - as the media have pointed out - a new decade (though reasonable minds may differ about when the new decade actually begins). For me, with a new employment situation has come a new outlook. I now feel as engaged by my professional pursuits as I have about running. Not bad, considering that my new shop is not even officially open for business yet.

For reasons both obvious and subtle, I have not posted much about my training recently, but, with BOSTON 2010 TRAINING (there would be emphatic theme music here if this were television or film) now underway, it's time to go back to the real mission of this blog: to serve as the training log which I'm too lazy or unmotivated to keep on my own. Posting weekly (or more) keeps me accountable, and has been a pretty successful recipe for me so far.

So, with the help of Coach Brad Hudson (again), I've devised a 15 week training plan. Since I ran about 2400 miles in 2009, staying consistent throughout, I am going to do a compressed "Introductory Period" followed by a 7-week "Fundamental Period", capped off by a "Sharpening Phase" and a two-week taper. Assuming that my life and energy allow, I will end up averaging 70 miles per week for the 12 weeks leading up to the taper. My peak week for Sugarloaf was 72 miles, and I've run one or two other 70+-mile weeks when I was not specifically training or two or more long runs fell within a 7-day stretch. Bear in mind, too, that I have another little race 6 days after Boston, as part of the Boston to Big Sur challenge, which I'm running on behalf of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. A fundraising link is in the box to the upper right corner of the blog's home page.

So, here's how Week #1 of Boston Training is shaping up:

• Monday - 6M easy, with 5x10 secs hill sprints
  
• Tuesday - 9.7M (meant to do 8, but misread the schedule), with 8x1-minute at 5K-ish pace/effort (those repeats ranged from 6:24 down to 6:00/mile average pace)
  
• Wednesday - 10+M, easy/steady
  
• Thursday - 8M, with 2x10 mins at tempo pace (which should be about 6:40/mile)
  
• Friday - 8M easy
  
• Saturday - 16M easy, with maybe the last 15-20 mins at moderate
  
• Sunday - 7M easy

Total should come out to around 64 miles, and should feel appropriately manageable at this point. The weather has been particularly unfriendly lately, with bitter cold, snow, ice, etc. However, I've been running outside and just dealing with it as best I can. I'll likely do tomorrow's threshold workout on the treadmill, just so that I may control the variables and hit the proper paces without being at the mercy of the road conditions (and ever-present wind).

Thanks for sticking with me. More to follow. -ESG/Ron