The coming week

This week is a scale back week. I am pushing 40 and have only been running for about a year so I am a bit concerned about how many miles I have logged over the past couple of weeks. That being said. I have decided to do one scale back week for every two long weeks, at least for a while. With a solid 24 mile week last week, I am following this schedule this week:

M: 4-5 miles
T: rest
W: 4-5 miles
Th: 4-5 miles
F: rest
Sa: 4-5 miles
Su: rest

I think this will give my body a chance to recover and keep me fresh. I also believe this will reduce my chance for injury.

What will happen here on my beloved blog during this week? Rob, come on 4 recovery runs do not have the same sort of built in suspense as your other posts. This may be true. What I have come up with is this:

• I have a guest poster, Scott from Forging Iron Man. Scott has made a lifestyle out of overcoming adversity. Although not a runner, his blog is really worth looking at.
• I will post some non-running stuff a couple of times this week. I may do something on motivation. I seem to find it in ample quantities these days without the need to psyche myself up as I did last year (especially in the summer). However, I think I will rethink some motivation stuff and how it applies now. It is different.
• I will also do a post on nutrition. This is my weakness. I will do fine for a few days and then binge. I will make progress but it will be slower than I would like it to be.
• On the weekend, I will post the week in review on the training runs rather than looking at the same thing. I will admit that the winter is a less interesting time to run. It is dark and I run the streets so there is less wildlife to see, beyond the Philadelphia crack head, Philadelphia drunk, or the less interesting Philadelphia pedestrian. So I will give a nitty gritty next weekend.
• In sum, 4 posts scheduled. 1) guest post, 2) motivation post, 3) nutrition post, and 4) week summary.

I will probably keep this type of schedule through the winter. That is 2 weeks of pushing the mileage and talking mainly about that and one week of scale back where I will look at doing some different things.

2008 Goals

The past two years I have picked one big New Year's resolution and done great with it. Two years ago, I decided that I wanted to read more than just work related stuff. After a year of dedicated reading I had put away 98 books. It was a resolution so I kept a running total. Last year I kept it up and logged somewhere near 40 or so. But I didn't keep as accurate a count so it is more of a guess. Last year I decided that I really wanted to transform my life in terms of health and exercise. I have done a lot of good work but there is still more to do so I will be continuing on the previous resolution as one year was not enough to get it done. To be truthful two years may not be enough.

Here are the results since March. I have lost 41 pounds, I have reduced my running times from a walk run walk run to steady running an 11:30 to 12:00 pace generally speaking. I had a 3 mile time of less than 11:00 for each mile. I have made good progress but there is lots of room to go. Here is the list for 2008.

1. Duplicate the weight loss efforts of 2007, 41 pounds
2. Run 1000 miles or more for the year
3. Run a marathon, I plan to run the Philadelphia Marathon next November
4. Consistently average 25+ miles per week (life happens and there will be hiccups but I want this to be the rule not the exception)
5. Incorporate fartleks, tempo running and interval running into my running.
6. Improve my martial arts throughout the year including more knife and boxing training.

I do not know where I will be at the end of the year for weight but if I stay where I am I will have a goal of 41 pounds for 2008 or few more depending upon how the year ends. Well there are my early New Year's goals.

Philadelphia Marathon Thoughts

This weekend I watched the Philadelphia Marathon on television while I was doing some law-type work. You can tell that you are hooked on running when you will watch it on television. But there I was at 7:30 in the morning watching other people run. I still can't watch golf on television, feels like torture and I did golf regularly at one point in time, not well but I golfed.

Kenya's Timothy Psitet won the marathon with a time of 2:25:01. Pretty good I think. I am looking forward to my marathon experience next year. I was looking at the finish leg and was thinking of my time at the half marathon in September. I really wanted to be there. I am really excited about running next November. Congratulations to everyone who ran.

Goals and Saturday times

I have decided to focus on some personal running goals until I figure out if I want to run another race this year. I wrote some goals around mid June as it relates to my running. Here is the list:

• Run sub 12 minute pace for 5 minutes (each mile below 12 minutes) - Completed this one. I ran a sub 12 for the first 6 miles of the Philly Distance Run.
• Run sub 11 minute pace for 5 miles
• Run sub 10 minute pace for 3 miles

These are the goals I am working on. I will try to work these out over the next 6 weeks while I figure out what I want to do in terms of racing for the rest of the year. Today I did this:

• Mile 1: 12:07
• Mile 2: 11:23
• Mile 3: 11:31

Not bad, I am getting there. I am getting faster and as long as I can concentrate on the speed I don't see any reason why I can't do this.