The easy day

Hey guys,

I think this new formula will work well. It seems to be flexible enough, but rigorous enough, to allow me to meet my goals. I'm hoping to gradually increase weekly mileage from the mid-20s, which my 12 miles for every three days will do, to low- to mid-30s. I think from that platform, I'll be able to step up into marathon training, if I so choose, or hone in on speed for 5k and 10k distances.

To do this, I hope to gradually expand at the five-mile runs, or incorporate speed work into them.

But I'm thinking I'll keep the easy runs as they are, anywhere from 2 to 3 miles (I did 2.5 miles today), with walking breaks allowed.

My run this morning is what I call the Buddy Run. It involved jogging down to Memorial Park, and doing one slow loop around the island, where Bud is allowed to run off leash. These are fun and easy for me and him.

He's doing well so far. He never moves beyond a trot anymore, but he can trot fairly consistently. Yesterday on the five miler, I would get out ahead of him, which never happened before he got sick. At that point, I'll stop and walk for a bit. He seems to catch his breath, then he'll start pulling on the leash.

It's as if he's saying, "OK, I'm good. Let's go."

Running with him keeps me from running too hard, which I think is good as I try to build this foundation of fitness. All too often, I get to impetuous, and tend to run too hard, too much, I think.

Later...

Reframing the numbers

Guys,

I think I've come up with a new running-mileage formula, this one created around the rule of three.

My goal will be to run three days, then take a day off. I'm starting out this week with a 5-2-5 concept, that is, run 5 miles the first day, a 2 mile easy jog the second and another 5 miles the third day. I'm sure that I will fiddle with this formula as I go along, but this is at least a starting point.

I've been frustrated with the weekly schedule for some time, especially with a schedule that has me working frequent weekends. Take last week, for example. I was hoping to run more than 22 miles, at least two more than I had run the week before.

My early week workouts put me on pace. I had a 7-miler on Tuesday, but that seemed to snuff out all energy for later. I ran 2 miles on Wednesday (I was approaching that as a recovery jog), 2.5 miles on Thursday (ditto). The goal was to run long sometime over the weekend, but I was working and my energy and will drained. I ran nothing on Friday, 3 on Saturday and nothing on Sunday. Weekly total: A disappointing 17.5.

The problem was, I think, that I stacked too much early in the week with that 7 miler.

With my new Three Day Formula, there will be more frequent rests, and hopefully over the long term, more weekly miles.

My goal is to build a consistent base, then start tweaking with longer runs, faster runs, hill runs, etc.