The Streak is Over

Two things:

First: I’m letting my “1 event each month” streak die. I’m trying to be smart. I took that 3 week rest to let my body heal up a bit, and it’s worked. So when an indoor track meet rolled around last week, I knew it was my chance to get in an “event” for December even though I wasn’t that trained for it. But racing each month gets spendy. And it’s maybe not the best for my body. So I did the right thing and called it off. The streak that started 28 months ago with Ironman WI 2007 is now over. (Check my “Race Resume” link in the header if you don’t believe me.) But I can take comfort in knowing that I’m doing the right thing.

Second: I’m taking a newer, better approach to my training for the Winter Carnival Half Marathon. I usually train at about 94% - 98% effort ALL the time, which I’m learning isn’t smart. (Gee, this post makes it look like I’ve been doing some thinking!) Training so hard is nearly impossible with all the snow that was seen in the last post. So I’m really going to focus on 3 things:

1. Hard, short speed work once a week at the Metrodome.
2. Mid-distance tempo run outside or on a treadmill.
3. Long run outside at a bit of an easier pace.

That last point is a new one for me. Last winter, I was going nearly all-out on all my long runs, and that’s a good way to hurt yourself running on this snow-packed country we call Minne-snow-da. I’m NOT going to kill myself this year. My long runs will still be hard, but they won’t be “puke in the last 400 meters” hard.

Bottom line: it’s winter. I don’t need to shoot for a PR at EVERY race. I can just train for a race so I have a decent showing, and maybe over the summer (when I’m not wearing an extra 5 pounds of clothing and worried about how to train in this weather) I’ll shoot for my next half PR. But not this winter.

Jeez, this post makes me sound like I’m matured a lot over the past year. Here’s proof I haven’t:

Happy New Year!! Have a great 2010!