2011 Goals

Big snowstorm today. It’s just starting. I’m home from work watching the mad little flakes fly. It’s like living in a snow globe – and some kid has gotten a hold of the thing and is shaking it like mad. We had 15cm last night, and now we’re supposed to get hit with another 30cm or more – and lots of wind too. I love big storms like this – but they aren’t so good for running. Oh well. This is winter training in Canada. Suck it up and keep running.

Winter training. This is the time to think about next season’s goals and how to achieve them. I’ve got some tentative plans, but I haven’t fully mapped out my race season yet. There’s a 5k in Halifax and a 10k in Greenwood in April; I’d like to run both. Beyond that, I know I want to tackle a spring half marathon, but I haven’t discussed this with Cliff yet. I will bow to his wisdom if he says wait until fall.

I do have some time goals in mind. A 16:20 for 5k would be nice, but for that first one in April, I’m thinking about a 16:40. I’ve been doing a fair bit of training at 3:20/k pace (5:20/mile pace), and it is feeling more and more comfortable. For 10k, Cliff is sure that I can run under 34 – and I’m starting to believe him. I did 9k worth of intervals in a workout last week (mile, 3x2k, mile), all at sub 34 pace (3:24/k). I wasn’t comfortable on that last mile (mostly because I ran the first half of the workout at 3:20/k or faster – I’m a dumbass), but I felt like the pace wasn’t alien to my legs and lungs. I’ve just got to get my mind around the fact that I should be running in the 3:20s for 10k – it’s partly a mental thing.

For the half, I’d like a 1:15. This too is ambitious – it’s pretty close to my current 10k PB pace, but I think the half is my best race. It’s a distance that favours wimps like me. Running a good 10k seems to hurt too much, and I’m a baby when it comes to that piercing stomach-churning feeling that oxygen debt and lactic build up cause in me. On the other end, I’ve always run out of gas late in the marathon – I don’t seem to be able to keep or replace enough of whatever you need to keep the pace strong in the last 6 miles. But the half is my bowl of porridge that’s just right. I can take the pace right up to that threshold, that danger area between flooding the muscles with lactic acid on one end and running too easy on the other – and I can hold it there.

So these are my goals – 40s off my 5k, 90s off my 10k, and 3 minutes or so off my half. And how do I plan to pull this off? Well, it’s easy – run like stink. Run, run, run. I’ve read articles that talk about how mileage is not necessarily the key to running faster, but, in my case, I kinda think it is. Now, I’m not being uber ridiculous about this, but I have stepped up my weekly mileage to around 100k. This is still way below what elite men and women are doing, but it’s more than I’ve ever done before, even for marathon training. I’ll do two weeks at somewhere between 95-105km and then dial my non-workout runs back to 70% on the third week. I’ve been doing this 3-week system for a few months now, and I think it’s paying off.

I still do two workouts and a long run each week. Cliff sets the workouts, and I do them with the rest of Cliff’s Antiques. And since last season, our club as really grown. Last winter, there were never more than 10 of us – now there are close to 30 showing up for workouts. It’s awesome. People have watched what Cliff has done for runners like Denise and Rami and they’ve seen at races how much fun we have with each other, and they’ve signed up in droves. The secret is out. What this means – other than a fun social network – is that nobody has to do a tough workout alone. There’s always someone around the same level of fitness to run with. This keeps everyone motivated and working hard but also having fun. Fast and fun – it should be our motto. Wonder what it is in Latin?

Tonight will be difficult, though. There’s no way any of us will run outside in 30cm of snow and 60km/h winds – it’s just not safe or sane. And it’s possible that our indoor options will be closed because most venues are preparing for the Canada Winter Games, which Halifax is hosting this month. So it may be that I have to make do with the lonely condo treadmill. The problem is that our treadmill only fires up to 10miles/h (3:44/km pace), and I’m supposed to run a 5k pace workout (3:20/km or faster). However, if it comes to that, Alex gave me an excellent idea – crank it up to 10 and then increase the grade (the incline) to make your legs work as if you were doing 5k pace. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s not bad – and sometimes you have to be innovative to get a run in here on the frozen shores of the north Atlantic.

Happy running!