Gearing up for Week 9

April 8, 2013 by 6 Comments

Week 8 of half marathon training was another solid week — the runs felt good, I felt strong on the hills and my ITB is under control. The one downside of the week was missing my weekly yoga class. I haven’t been able to get to this class with any consistency lately because the collective family schedules have been all over the place! We’re facing another busy week in the RWA household with lots of fun stuff going on, but I’m determined to get back to that class this week.

Training for Week 9 includes:

Monday – 6 miles (with negative split on the back 3)

Tuesday – Cross-training

Wednesday – 4 mile Fartlek

Thursday – 1000 meter repeats & Yoga

Friday – Rest

Saturday –  Shakeout Run with Bart Yasso

Sunday – BAA 5K

Yes – did you catch that? A run with Bart Yasso!  Last week, I was invited by Runner’s World to join a group run with Bart Yasso as part of all the great activities Runner’s World has going on during Marathon weekend. Very excited – hope I can keep up with him 🙂

What have you got planned for this week?

 

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Filed Under: Bart Yasso, Boston Marathon, half marathon training, week ahead

Plugging back in

December 27, 2011 by 11 Comments

I have been delightfully unplugged the last few days – removed from my laptop and only the occasional text on my phone. After kicking off the Christmas weekend with a frigid 7 mile run on Saturday, I have over-indulged in food, wine, family and laughter and I am good with all of it.

After a few lazy days, it’s time time to plug back in. With R’n’R DC about 12 weeks away, I’m back on a  formal training plan.  Recently, while tweeting with a few runners about training plans, Bart Yasso weighed in (one of the many reasons I love social media!) and suggested that based on my time goals and history, that I needed to increase my weekly mileage to closer to 35 miles, with at least one speed work per week. So I’ve decided to stick with the combination of Smart Coach and Hal Higdon’s Intermediate plan, similar to what I did for the Philly half, while upping my overall mileage  — through a combination of more double digit LSDs and an additional easy run day.

It may sound crazy, but I feel much more settled when I’ve got a plan in place – for the last few weeks I’ve just kind of run on my own at whatever distance/pace I felt like. And while it was nice to have break, towards the end I was starting to feel like I was losing focus a bit.

Does a training plan help you to feel more focused or constrained?

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Filed Under: Bart Yasso, Hal Higdon, RnR DC, Smart Coach, training