MId week, 2008 training plans, 5K-10K training, t-shirts

The mid week workouts are posted Make sure if you are running on the track to remember that others are using it as well. If you not running on it stay to the outside.

A lot of you will be running marathons or halfs in the next month so it’s time to think about races you might want to race train for next winter or spring. I’ve posted training plans for many (Marathons), there are a few more that I’ll finish up with the week. I’ll hopefully get the half marathon plans up this week.

It’s always a good idea to start making plans for your next events after your big race. This will allow you to plan for your recovery and enable you to get back into training safely while limiting the risk of injury. After building for your big races over the summer you have built a nice base for yourself. Now that you have done this building strength for you upcoming race this would be a great time to train for some shorter races, 5K and 10K’s. Doing this through the first of the year will let you work on your speed and when you start your build up for another longer race next year you will be that much faster for 5 and 10K’ which will make you faster for your longer races. The nice thing about training for the shorter races is that the emphasis is on speed and not so much on endurance which means that it’s not as time consuming. Meaning all of you runs are a tad faster and longer runs are shorter which means less time running. I always sort of thought of it as a vacation of sorts since I wasn’t spending as much time on the road. Certainly a nice break physically and mentally. If you are interested in exploring this type of training let me know and I can cook up a post marathon/half plan built on working on you speed.

Speaking of 5K and 10K many of you have taken advantage of the fall racing schedule which has many of the larger races of over that distance most gaining PR’s. Great job!!

I’ll be ordering long sleeve t-shirts this week from New Balance. So those of you newer members who haven’t gotten one will get one in a few weeks (as well as everyone else). I checking into which colors are available. They did mention that they had some new colors coming in November but I’m not sure I want to wait that long. I’ll keep you posted.

MId week, Sunglasses, Madison Park Rowdies

The mid week workouts have been posted. A lot are finishing up with track work for their October 7th workout, while the rest are on hills. You Seattle Marathon and half people have been chomping at the bit to get to them so now you’ve got it. I know we started a little later then the plan says but I’ll make sure you get your monies worth. For those of you on the track make sure to make the best of these workouts as they will really help improve your fitness for the your upcoming race. One benefit I’ve always found from doing shorter track work before a marathon is that with the increased turnover from the shorter intervals it makes my marathon race pace seem a lot slower, which makes it that much more comfortable and seem easier which is bonus any time.

For those of you running 400’s this week don’t worry about the times on using the workout tables. Since your emphasis has been on training for a longer and slower paced race you’ll find them hard to do so what I would suggest is to start at your 2-mile time trial pace, run four at that pace then the next four 2 seconds faster per 400 and the final 4 2 seconds faster than the last set. It might seem hard looking at it now but you’ll find that it shouldn’t be that hard. Remember you’re getting 90 seconds in between them. If you need I can explain it at the workout.

Tonight Michael Pruitt from Axley Eyewear will be out with some of his sunglasses. I know you’re saying it’s getting dark out so what the heck do you need sunglasses for, well over the last couple of years companies have been putting lenses with transitions lens (they lighten when it’s dark) in them as well as put colors that work well when it’s dark and I’ve become a big fan of them. I think they really make it easier to see when it’s dark. Another thing that is good about sunglasses this time of year especially for those of you running marathons in the next few weeks is that early in the morning when your races start the sun is very low on the horizon. Having run Portland the one thing I remember was that sun seemed to be in my eyes the whole way and have sunglasses really help me with that. If you see something you like tonight and don’t have the $ we can still make arraignments and they do offer a nice discount to group members.

We’ve been at Madison park for the last two Saturdays and as some of you get into the longer runs be careful as the pavement is pretty bumpy and irregular. The week before last 3 people fell and I’m sure more will down the road. So keep your eyes peeled and get those knees up. Also last week someone left me a note on my clip board while I was out running (yes I do run) complaining of being chased off the road a couple of weeks in a row by bunch of out of rowdy, out of control chuckit members (maybe they didn’t use those terms). Well I’m not sure how to handle this one as this has been the second complaint in the last couple of months. I guess just keep your eyes open and try to give others some space if you see them. Maybe they should join the group so that they can pillage and plunder with the rest of you.

Mid Week, “does running ever get easy?”

Well I've been a little inconsistent with this lately but hope to get back on it now that school in back in session and the kids aren’t climbing all over me begging me to go down the slip and slide with them. The nice thing is that it has let a lot of stuff build up for me to ramble about. First things though the midweek workouts are posted .

You might notice that I linked back to the old site. I haven’t added that page yet to the new site. I had to abandon the old one as it wouldn’t let me edit anything but it functions except when I go to edit it I get some kind of data base error. Anyway in the long run this is better because I was able put this one together so that I have more control over such things.

So back to business, you’ll notice that the workouts the next couple of nights is the 2 mile pace run. For those running a marathon early next month this will really be your last test before your race. You have some workouts left but nothing like this where you have to put it on the line, focus and get it done after having run a race recently and had a long run a few days ago. Everything after this is all cake. You’ve got great weather and might be the last pace run this year where its light out the weather is warm so make the best of it I say.

There are a lot of new members of the group who will be doing this for the first time. I can’t think of a better way to get a grip on where you are fitness wise. From here you can only get faster, so put it in cruise control and do what you can, making sure to keep in control and run within your ability and finish strong and build from here.

Someone asked me the other day “does running ever get easy?” Well you know if you want to get better no it’s always going to have hard moments. As you get faster the effort is still the same. I think though as you get fitter your tolerance for harder stuff gets higher. Also as you get those better times, that’s the reward that makes it worth it. Knowing that you can run faster and further than when you started with the same effort is a very nice feeling and is very rewarding but it never gets to the point that you feel like there is no effort but I think it is very satisfying. So just keeping plugging along and you’ll reach your goals and the satisfaction that come with it which I think always makes it seem easy.

Super Jock n Jill Half, Madison Park, Chuckit web site

It was great to see a lot of you out the Super Jock n Jill half yesterday. It was on the humid side but overall a very nice day for a run. With so may of you running there were some great performances and some not so great but overall most had great runs. Considering that for most this was a workout and you weren't overly rested for it your mission was accomplished by going into it a little tired and being able to bang out a nice hard run. With most running hard yesterday I'll hold off on posting the mid workouts until I see who comes out the next couple of nights. If you ran yesterday your workout will be fairly light. We'll run the monthly Pace Run / Time Trial next week. For those who didn't run yesterday it will be business as usual. I put together a slide show from the pictures I took yesterday. The results are also posted here.

Remember this Saturday we'll start meeting at Madison Park for the next few weeks for your long runs. This give those who are training for the Seattle Marathon / Half a chance to do some running on the course, for the others a nice change of pace. It's very easy to get to and not much a drive from Super Jock n Jill. I'll be sending directions later in the week.

I'm having some serious issues with the web site ( Like I can't edit anything without getting an error message) at this point the only thing I think I can do is tear it down and rebuild it so in the next couple of days you'll probably see it change a bit. I'll try to make it as seamless as I can. One problem will be that with it's issues you may have to register to access some things. I'm going to try and recover the user database but with the problems I'm having now I may not be able to do it. Sorry for any inconvenience.