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<p>Good morning, TEAM LIT!</p>
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<p>Reg: "Sweet spot" should return this weekend!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yoshi: If you truly want to target an April (or even late March) marathon, based on your fitness and background, starting proper, hard-core speed-work now is NOT the right thing to do. You will burn out, get dead legs, and possibly injure yourself by the time race day comes around, and probably two months before that. If not all three of those happening to you, at least two or best case one. What I would like to see you do is line up a few 5K's and hit the circuit, but have fun with it, and do it with no-stress, no-expectations. Do a Turkey Trot, a Santa Shuffle, and line up one or two more around those. In between that time, such as during the week, do shorter runs, maybe 8 miles max once or twice a week, and gentle recovery runs all others. One of those 8-milers (or 6 or 7 miles, don't get caught up in mileage totals, keep this fun) do a few strides or even a mile repeat or two, but don't get all serious. Don't even bring a watch. Just focus on running hard and keeping form efficient. You can tempo a 3 or 4 mile run also. Also, hook up with other runners for social runs. They on the surface are garbage runs, as you will probably be faster than all of the others, but these will keep you far more motivated and introduce a level of fun to running that, I fear, you haven't experienced all that often. Do this rather unstructured (compared to marathon training) through the end of the year. It will fine-tune your speed. Give you confidence in running hard and your ability. And it'll do it while keeping it light and fun so that you can hit the marathon training hard come January 1.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another alternative, which is good but not as fun as the above, is to go more for building strength before the marathon training begins. For newbie marathoners, this is paramount. But for you with your background, you don't need it. You can jump right to the above. But it is good, and I would NOT do this AND the above (races), for then you defeat the purpose of an off-season. The alternative is to hit up some hills. But don't go crazy doing repeats of the same hill. Mix it up. Find a fun hill with a few humps, or a stretch of road with two hills, even if you run up the hill one way, back down the other side, and come up the other way. Keep it light and try to play a few games. Focus on form. Maybe do the first repeat by focusing on form in the first half of the hill, holding back, and then hit it hard for the second half. On the back side, maybe go into the hill easy and then at half way focus on bigger strides (for building more strength). The next week focus on short, fast strides, working on leg speed (aka cadence).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Me...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>4 mile easy, slow (sluggish) run early this morning. Hammy/glute really pulling, so making today, tomorrow, and Saturday all easy in hopes to right the injury for Sunday's long, long, long day of running.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Great day, y'all!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Reg: "Sweet spot" should return this weekend!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yoshi: If you truly want to target an April (or even late March) marathon, based on your fitness and background, starting proper, hard-core speed-work now is NOT the right thing to do. You will burn out, get dead legs, and possibly injure yourself by the time race day comes around, and probably two months before that. If not all three of those happening to you, at least two or best case one. What I would like to see you do is line up a few 5K's and hit the circuit, but have fun with it, and do it with no-stress, no-expectations. Do a Turkey Trot, a Santa Shuffle, and line up one or two more around those. In between that time, such as during the week, do shorter runs, maybe 8 miles max once or twice a week, and gentle recovery runs all others. One of those 8-milers (or 6 or 7 miles, don't get caught up in mileage totals, keep this fun) do a few strides or even a mile repeat or two, but don't get all serious. Don't even bring a watch. Just focus on running hard and keeping form efficient. You can tempo a 3 or 4 mile run also. Also, hook up with other runners for social runs. They on the surface are garbage runs, as you will probably be faster than all of the others, but these will keep you far more motivated and introduce a level of fun to running that, I fear, you haven't experienced all that often. Do this rather unstructured (compared to marathon training) through the end of the year. It will fine-tune your speed. Give you confidence in running hard and your ability. And it'll do it while keeping it light and fun so that you can hit the marathon training hard come January 1.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Another alternative, which is good but not as fun as the above, is to go more for building strength before the marathon training begins. For newbie marathoners, this is paramount. But for you with your background, you don't need it. You can jump right to the above. But it is good, and I would NOT do this AND the above (races), for then you defeat the purpose of an off-season. The alternative is to hit up some hills. But don't go crazy doing repeats of the same hill. Mix it up. Find a fun hill with a few humps, or a stretch of road with two hills, even if you run up the hill one way, back down the other side, and come up the other way. Keep it light and try to play a few games. Focus on form. Maybe do the first repeat by focusing on form in the first half of the hill, holding back, and then hit it hard for the second half. On the back side, maybe go into the hill easy and then at half way focus on bigger strides (for building more strength). The next week focus on short, fast strides, working on leg speed (aka cadence).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Me...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>4 mile easy, slow (sluggish) run early this morning. Hammy/glute really pulling, so making today, tomorrow, and Saturday all easy in hopes to right the injury for Sunday's long, long, long day of running.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Great day, y'all!</p>
