March 5th Post

            As seasons change, there is one important question that needs to be asked. Is this the season that we once again back down or is this the season that we get after it and really go for it? Yes, you know what I’m talking about. I’m sick of those red-winged black birds and I’m sick of backing down. They’re the size of my fist, but yet they think that they can just buzz around my head while flapping their wings and pecking at my head. So what are we going to do about it this year? A lot of ideas have been tossed around. Do we do nothing? Maybe we should write a letter to the city and petition to allow for their extermination? Should we run with rocks in our hands? Tennis racquets? Should we organize group runs with the MSU tennis team? I understand the birds do not want people within x feet of their nest, but why don’t they just build them in places away from sidewalks or paths? Does anyone have any more good ideas here?

            On other notes, I posted my racing schedule. If you’re going to be at a race that I’m at, you should let me know so I can keep an eye out for you. I also posted a poll asking what people consider to be an elite time for both male and female US marathoners. I think it’s really interesting to see what people perceive as elite for both sexes and I hope people respond.

Summary of my training week:

            I have finished my 7^th week back from running and every workout to this point has indicated to me that I’m in at least as good of shape as I was at this point last year or maybe even better. The workout that I ran this week was identical to the workout that I ran this week last year. It was the Mt. Hope Cemetery fartleck workout. Lansing is a pretty flat area and one of the better places to incorporate hills into a workout is actually a cemetery. The workout is quite simple. On flat stretches or uphill segments, you run hard while you recover on the downhill segments. It’s really a taxing workout. To my astonishment, we had 11 guys from Team Playmakers Racing show up for the workout. It was absolutely awesome. It was my first workout with the team in quite some time. I was overly excited for the workout and I went out too hard. I hadn’t run any hill workouts this year, while I was running hill farlecks every week last winter. Despite the lack of hill training this year, I ended up finishing workout 38 seconds faster. It seemed that most of the guys at the workout also made the most of the day and ran quite well. Needless to say, I was pretty excited for both myself and the team. It was pretty cool to see a group of guys just getting after it.

My legs are starting to feel a little sore/tired from the process of getting back to running. My main focus this past week was to make the average pace of each run faster than the prior weeks while running about the same mileage as last week. I’m getting to the point where my easy runs are in the 5:50-6:15 range which is a good sign for me. Everyone has different strengths as a runner, and I believe mine is to run efficiently at faster paces while my body recovers. I hit 87 miles this week with two 5.5 mile a.m. runs. I really don’t have a mileage plan or workout plan mapped out and really am enjoying the process of running how I feel.