The day after

One day after Boston and I have mixed feelings... While the weather was a factor and my low mileage training also had its toll, as well as a lousy diet and little sleep, I learned some valuable lessons out of my 2:46 performace. They are these:

1. Friends are a big help. To run with or motivate you. I have to say Matt (and Jen), Rick, Chris (even though you werent running), Brian, Danni, JP, etc etc have all contributed to my being a faster runner. Matt's collaboration on some extra long runs was especially helpful.

2. Brings me to extra long runs at moderate pace. The more of these I do, the more of a believer I become. I think I should like to increase these to 2 per month in the 30 - 35 mile range. They do something biologically, especially when run slow, than I cant quite describe but seems to result in some incredible endurance adaptation.

3. The advice and help from a coach (Coach Leach). this is great from motivation and from a technical standpoint.

4. LT's. Mix and match indoor and outdoor. I found running indoor ones on an a soft track, with 2 runners alternating the lead every mile and maintaining an agreed upon effort, was an excellent complement to the outdoor LT where you are basically on your own and likely to slack on effort.

5. Mile repeats with a short recovery (30 sec) at marathon pace (or slightly faster). I found these to work well toward the end of the training season.

6. Weekly hills. Although I skipped my megahill workout this training cycle I ran part of the Boston course about 2 times a week.

7. Extended LT's (10 - 12 miles at LT range).

8. Solid, slightly faster long runs (16 - 20 miles) at 7:30 pace.

9. OK to slack on recovery runs.

These are the things I seemed to get good results out of. There is definite room for improvement, as I am not yet at the 2:30's I want to get too...

Hopefully this summer we can do some training in Chicago! my next target race will be in December or January of next year though, with Chicago as a "training run" (at 90% effort).

Ed