I’ve decided to go rogue. Everyone else is starting their spring marathon and half marathon training plans, with their speed work, long runs and recovery runs. For me, it is the beginning of my training for the Minneapolis Half Marathon on June 6th. Oh, there is nothing I like better than printing out a brand new training schedule and then following it religiously. The training schedule has been my task master and I’ve always done exactly as it dictates.

Not any more. I’m going off-road, going onto my own path for this round of training.  The words I’m going write next are shocking, so prepare yourself. I’m not going to do any speed work. That’s right. I’ll miss the track, but we must part ways for now. Why? Because, while I love you track, your tough love hurts sometimes.

NYC Marathon is my goal this season. End of story. That means my goal race is 8 months away, which means I have 8 months to hurt myself. Pessimistic? I would say realistic. Another reality for me is that a ten minute mile is about as fast as I can go. I’ve been running consistently for 5 years now. I ran about that speed when I started, and that’s how fast I run now. I would love to run a 9 minute mile, but 2 seasons of speed work  haven’t made that happen. I’ve come to accept the 10 minute mile. It is my friend. Even the 10:30 mile and I are on friendly terms. They are lovely paces and they make race day math easy.

The last 6 months or so, I’ve also been friends with “the pain free run”. We haven’t been friends very long, but I would like to make this a long term relationship. The track workouts and the pain free run have not gone hand in hand for me. If you saw me run in person, you would know why. My feet barely leave the ground and I pretty much gimp along. Maybe I was reaching when I thought that the track would be nice to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like the track. It’s just that over time, it wears me down.

With no speed work, it makes my training for this race pretty straight forward. I’ll run 4 days a week, with one run being between 8 and 11 miles. That’s it. The other days I’ll run between 4 and 7 miles, depending on how I’m feeling. I’m going to actually attempt to listen to my body and run more when I feel good and run less when I feel like I’m starting to hurt. I have never done that before. I’ve always been a slave to the schedule, afraid that if I didn’t do exactly what it said that I wouldn’t be able to finish the race. Well, Mr. Half Marathon, I’m not afraid of you anymore. I’ve done enough of you now that I’m not going to let you frighten me. I’ve got my eye on the NYC Marathon goal, and you will not distract me. My friends 10 Minute Mile, Pain Free Run and I are a team now. We’ve got 10 and a Half Minute Mile on the bench if we need him, and we are not afraid to use him. Let’s go!

Today is Monday, so it was back to the dome for some speed work. I will be so happy when all of this snow is gone and I can do my intervals on a regular track. I live just about a mile from our neighborhood school, so when the ground is clear I can run over to the school for a warm-up, use the track, and then cool down on the way home. It works out very well. Of course, when school is still in session, I tend to be a distraction to the elementary schoolers, many of whom already have a short attention span. Too bad for them! I gotta get my speed work in! If it keeps snowing, school may be out of session by the time the track is clear.

Speed work on the indoor track is not ideal. The track is small, with about 5 laps equalling a mile. As a result, there are a lot of turns and they are sharper than a normal track. I have to take it easy and slow down on the turns because they are hard on my little broken body. There are also a lot of “mature” citizens at the dome that I would prefer not to run down as that could cause me further injury. No, really, they are very nice and, if anything, I feel bad that they are worried that they are in my way… which they are… but I don’t mind because, hey, at least they are moving their bodies which I admire… but I digress. The bottom line is I have to take it easy when stepping around them which slows me down. It’s a little more difficult to hit my target split times than normal when I go there.

Now that I’ve laid the groundwork with a lot of excuses:

Last week, I sucked big time. The whole time I thought I was running fast. I felt fast (for me, anyway). I checked my Garmin occasionally during the intervals and thought I was hitting the right pace. When I got done with my workout, though, I checked the splits and I was way slow. I couldn’t believe it! Bummer. (Do people still say “bummer” or am I showing my age a little?)

Today there were a lot of people at the dome because it is yucky outside. I was all set to have another crappy day. I don’t know why, but today I was super fast! I easily beat all of my split time goals and felt great! Why is that? Why do we have good days and bad days? All I know is that I am very happy with my workout and the bad workout from last week is now forgotten. I love that about running… sometimes all it takes is one good run to renew your motivation and optimism.

I’m a pretty hardy soul, but the temperature when I got up this morning was negative 15 degrees. My Plan B for Mondays is to go to the dome. There is a nice artificial turf track and plenty of obstacles (older walkers) to keep things interesting. Here is what it looked like when I got there:

The inside is netted off for soccer and other activities. Today, it was set up for pre-schooler play time. Not too many pre-schoolers when I got there, but it was pretty busy when I was done.

On my calendar was my first “speed” workout. When I first started running, my plan was simply to run. When I decided to train for my first marathon, I modified my plan to run far. That plan was only moderately successful. I did finish my first marathon, but with a whole lot of walking involved. For my second marathon I enlisted the help of a coach who wanted to complicate things by introducing things like intervals, stretching, weight training, and even more running into the plan. This resulted in a better second marathon effort. My coach and his fancy-dancy schedule won my allegiance and are both in full employ for this round of training.

The four miles with a few pick-ups went by quickly and it was a balmy +3 degrees by the time I left. Let’s hope the heat wave continues!