Training Update

Had a really good week of running post-Meteor 10K. Took three super easy days after the race and then on Wednesday did a mid-week long run, going two hours on the trails in Mastick Woods. Yesterday I ran a 6 mile progressive tempo and really nailed it, running 37:55 with splits of 6:54, 6:42, 6:28, 6:15, 5:59, 5:34. This is always a fun workout to do because the goal is to run each mile 10-15 seconds faster than the one before and then trying to hit the final mile at 5K effort. It teaches you to hold back early on and discipline yourself before the final drive to the finish. I call it the Kenyan run because workouts like this are a staple for many of that country's elites. Of course, they probably finish their runs at like 4:20-4:30 pace! I've been feeling really good over the past month and I think it's largely due to a slight tweak I made in my training program. I'm not doing anything different in my workouts but I have been spacing out my hard workouts so that I get two, sometimes three easy distance days in between. In the past I've been guilty of trying to cram everything into the traditional 7-day schedule, but now I've been working on a 10-day pattern where I try to do a long run, tempo workout and interval/hill workout or race, with all the filler days being easy aerobic runs. So far, so good ... I think!

Next up is a 5K cross country race in May. That will be a nice change of pace and Oberlin's XC course is really nice. I've decided that my Spring/early Summer goal is going to be to PR at the Diemer 5K in Grand Rapids on June 12, so I'm 99 percent certain that I won't be doing the USATF 10K six days before that. It's just too hard to focus on two races so close together.