week of 24 Dec and the tale of the migrating cold

Happy new year, everyone. Hope everyone had a happy holiday.

We arrived back home last night after a 10.5 hour car ride. The drive back to Virginia was thankfully quicker than the way down Georgia as there wasn't any traffic. We did make an unwise choice to use the HOV lanes and sat for about 20 minutes watching car fly by in the main lanes. (The anxiety was made worse by the fact we were maybe 20 minutes from home.)

I think I'm nearly over the cold, which moved into my chest and was pretty nasty. It's head north to my ears and nose, but I think it's on its way out. Unfortunately, it's also made it to my wife and kids. My daughter gets pneumonia at the drop of a hat so I'm hoping she avoids that this time. My son, however, could be missing an arm and he'd say, "Oh, I'm all right." He never complains, so I'm not sure how sick he is.

I finished reading Running Your Best by Ron Daws in the car on the way back. It's really an excellent book. There are some editing problems (typos), but most of them are obvious and I could have done without some of the physiology, which I believe might be dated. I believe he must have felt compelled to put that in despite having started the book saying it was a "practical guide" and that the physiologists were forever catching up to experimenting coaches. Bob Glover's Runner's Handbook for beginners followed by Running Your Best for those who decide they want to run their best isn't a bad formula. It's too bad it's out of print.

Running Your Best has schedules for 20 weeks and some general guidance for shortening them, which will be necessary for me. My basic plan is to build to my target mileage in January (and maybe a week or two in February) and spend February on aerobic base (includes fast aerobic running). March will be hill resistance training with perhaps a touch of anaerobic running, following by racing in April (Cherry Blossom 10 miler and maybe the GW parkway 10 miler). 4 May is either the Frederick or Potomac River Run marathon.

What's my target mileage and how do I build to it? Well, I think 70 mpw is reasonable and Daws has you run relatively even efforts each day to get there as quickly and comfortably as possible.

The week's training was (miles/pace/avg bpm)

Mo - 8.46/8:52/142
Tu - Rest (xmas)
We - 10.95/9:06/145 (hilly)
Th - 7.50/9:12/139
Fr - 10.60/8:54/149 (I rushed to beat a storm)
Sa - Rest (drove GA to VA)
Su - 10.04/9:24/142 (high HR for the pace -- all the sugar in the car?)

Week - 47.57/9:06/144

I hated to run less miles this week than last, but considering I had to take two goose eggs, I did pretty well to get 47.6 in 5 sessions versus 49.6 in 7 sessions (6 days) last week.

Tomorrow I'm running a New Year's Eve 5K. I ran it in 21:15 last year and then better my 5K PR to 20:32 in May. Given my condition, I'm a little worried I won't even beat 21:15. That would be pretty hard to have worked this hard this year and come into the new year slower than last.