Forming the Plan

Alright folks, here's the plan. The San Diego half-marathon is coming up on 5 June. That gives me 16 weeks to train, starting today. My goal is once again 1:20, and provided I don't have a significant injury, I foresee no problems in attaining that. 1:19 or 1:18 might even be possible, although I have to take care not to get too far ahead of myself. The main priority right now is just staying healthy. To that effect, this evening I did 30 minutes on the elliptical, followed by 12 minutes of running. From now on crosstraining will be a regular part of my base aerobic work. And since right now all I'm doing is base work, I'm becoming quite familiar with the elliptical (to the point where it's getting pretty boring). I think I'm going to look into spinning classes on base. It's taken me nine years to learn, but I have finally realized that training smart is just as important, if not more important, than training hard. That means strength-training, stretching, and even some yoga drills are now part of my routine. I would like to add plyometrics eventually, once I'm sure that my calf can take it.

The plan is do to a four-phase training program based on Jack Daniel's Running Formula. Each phase will naturally be about four weeks, although I may shorten the first phase to three so I can get to my quality workouts sooner. I can't do any speed for at least the next two weeks, just to make sure my calf is fully healed. But that's fine; the important thing right now is to work on basic cardio fitness, and that means steady effort at 75% of max heart rate (for me, that's about 150-160). There are some local road races beginning in mid-March that I would like to do, so I plan to have at least a few quality workouts under my belt by then. The local races will be good tempo efforts and will also help me build competitive toughness, which has obviously diminished in the two years that I haven't raced. My mind is not accustomed to the pain, and I need to get it back to where it used to be. I like to think of myself as a kind of Prefontaine; I pride myself in having a high pain tolerance and just being able to outwill the other guy.

A group of officers are planning on carpooling over to San Diego for the half. That will be cool; certainly a lot better than making a solo trip. Running is way more fun when it's a social endeavor. Plus, it will be a chance for me to share some of my running knowledge with my peers. Coaching is honestly one of the most enjoyable parts of the sport. For the past year and a half I've been an informal coach to a lot of folks in our squadron who have sought my advice to improve their running times. One of our senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs), Gallup, is doing San Diego. It will be his first half. I promised to draw up a training plan for him. Today he joked that I would be back in Phoenix by the time he finished the race. I told him that breaking 2:00 would be a realistic possibility. One of our other NCOs, Belcher, might also run it. I have to see if I can convince him. In order to have credibility as a coach, I've worked hard to boost my running IQ. In addition to Jack Daniels' Running Formula, I'm also reading The Runner's Body, a publication of Runner's World magazine. It's pretty much a crash course in training, injury prevention, and nutrition, with a lot of good scientific explanations of how the body responds to training. Today I learned that I should be taking fish oil supplements; better add that to the shopping list.

One of the purposes of this blog will be to chronicle the training and racing experiences of other runners that I'm coaching, as well as my peers and friends that I'm not directly coaching, but with whom I share the passion of running. I am especially interested in knowing why people run. Gallup says he wants to prove to himself that he can finish a half-marathon, a kind of "midlife crisis" kind of challenge. I have actually thought of a potential book title: "Why We Run." Ideally, it would follow three or four people as they prepare for the same event. One would be me, another would be an elite or sub-elite (someone like Sally Meyerhoff), and the other two would be "recreational" runners, like Gallup. Sure, writing a book is a pipe dream right now, but maybe somewhere down the road I'll have the journalistic reputation to pitch the idea.