Jan/Feb Totals, and a Good Week Post-25K

With all of the longer/easier running I've been doing lately, I've logged some good miles. I'm at 194 miles so far this year, with 13 of those runs being 60+ minutes (and 7 of those 13 being 80+ minutes).

Let's compare that with Jan and Feb of the last 6 years:

YEAR: runs of 60+ mins (runs of 80+ mins) = total Jan & Feb miles
2010: 6 (2) = 130 miles
2011: 4 (2) = 99 (injured beginning of Feb)
2012: 6 (3) = 172
2013: 8 (3) = 130
2014: 0 (0) = 83 (coming off sacrum injury)
2015: 0 (0) = 128 (lots of 45 min runs, focusing on swimming)
2016: 13 (7) = 194 miles

In terms of longer runs, this year has started quite a bit better than the last 6. And WAAAAAY better than the last 2! I plan on going over 200 miles for the year on a run today, and that will easily be the quickest I've gotten to 200 miles in a year.

So my experiment of running more LONG runs at an EASIER pace has really seemed to work OK for my last 2 long races (as shown by my decent pace in my last post). But now that I'm gearing up for some shorter races, I'm less positive about my training. Training LONGER and EASIER helped with being to hold on to 6:30 pace for many miles, but will it help me get below 6:00 for just a few miles? I think I'll have more issues here. Who knows. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks!

(Also, in Jan and Feb I had 256 and 356 minutes on the trainer. [Not including 90 minutes outside on a nice Feb ride a few weeks ago.] That's not a ton, but decent for me. Those 700+ minutes in the saddle is better than the 296 minutes over Jan and Feb of 2015. Trying to keep that up!)

Oh, and here's what last week looked like after the Half Marathon / 25K I did 10 days ago:

• SUNDAY and MONDAY were off. Monday I walked a lot with my sick son at the zoo.

• TUESDAY was an easy spin on the trainer to loosen up the legs a bit.

• WEDNESDAY was more rest, with a decent leg workout (some old physical therapy moves).

• THURSDAY was my first run since Saturday's race. Five easy miles, and things felt OK.

• FRIDAY was a long (for me) trainer workout with lots of shorter efforts. I did Spinervals 23.0: both the "B" and "C" workouts (those are both about 30 min workouts with B being 7x90 sec efforts, and C being 12x10 sec all-out sprints).

• SATURDAY I did a quick run: 8 miles somewhere between easy and moderate. Stretching and foam rolling (and PVC rolling) has helped my calf/heel a lot.

• SUNDAY ended the week with another decently long trainer ride: the middle of Spinervals 15.0 which was some slightly longer efforts: 5x6 min and 2x10 min. That's 50 minutes of hard effort over an 80 minute ride, which is a decent ratio for me! And then I did some leg work at the gym.


My legs were heavy yesterday, but they felt GOOD. Back shortly with a few posts: 2 upcoming races, another race entry GIVEAWAY, and potentially some gross feet updates. :)