Final Preparation

This week has been my last somewhat hard week of training before I ease back next week to get ready for the USATF Club Nationals Cross Country race in Charlotte. Hopefully, I'll be feeling as good as Kenya's Josephat Menjo (above), who ran the fastest 10K in the world in 2010. After my wind tunnel 5K on Saturday, I took Sunday off to recover and then ran a very solid 2 x 20 minutes tempo workout w/ 5:00 recovery between the segments, averaging 6:15 pace (first rep was 6:20 pace, second rep 6:10 pace). I felt really strong and smooth in that workout, which has convinced me that a day off each week is not such a bad idea. Need to let go of that streak mentality. If I were just running easy every day it would be no problem but stress workouts and races do require recovery. On Thursday, I did my second key workout of the week, 16 x 200 w/ 200 jogs. Nothing fancy here, but I did this workout cutdown style where I did the first four in 42 seconds (about 5K effort), the second four in 40 seconds each (more like 3K effort), the third set in 38 seconds each, and finished with 37s. I like doing workouts like this to work on form and efficiency and if you hold back in the first half, it's a pretty enjoyable workout, though I could have done without the sub 30 temps. Weather looks like it will be in the 50s in Charlotte though this time of year there's a good chance it could rain, which seems par for the course for Club Nationals.

Saturday I plan on doing a very easy 10 or 11 mile medium long run and then I'll do something like 2 x 10 minutes @ tempo on Monday. After that it will be easy running and making sure I'm caught up on sleep. I always take a week off after Nationals, but this year I feel more inspired to get rolling for next year. After my rest break I plan to start prepping for 2011 a few days after Christmas. Not sure what my goal races are but I definitely want to do a fast 5K and maybe do some road miles in the summer (I know there's a good one in Columbus in July). The masters national track and field championships are at Baldwin Wallace at the end of July and I know I'd definitely like to do the 5000 but if I can get my legs moving fast, I might try the 1500 too for kicks.