Not much to report on the running front. I got about 4.6 miles in yesterday morning and it felt good. I took it nice and slow, which meant that I ran out of time before I could get to 5 miles, but that's OK. Tomorrow I'll head out for a 5 mile tempo run and will pick up the pace. I skipped the workout this morning in favor of running Friday morning instead. I'm also going to get a brief 3 miles in on Saturday morning before going to the gym to get some swimming done. All in all, I should hopefully hit something around 30 miles this week (including a 10 mile long run on Sunday morning), which would be a great start (or restart?) to training for the summer.
Several of the bloggers I read regularly ran their first marathons this weekend at the Frederick Running Festival so I wanted to congratulate all of them as well. I know from their posts just how much time and effort marathon training requires, especially with jobs, kids, and everything else requiring attention too. Now that their marathons are over, they're faced with the age old question of "What's next?" It's an interesting question that we all have to answer once we reach any goal that has required lots of work and dedication. Once the goal has been reached, it's almost as if there's a void where our preparation for the event once resided. I know that's how I felt after the National Half Marathon, which probably led to my lack of training in April.
For my own running, having races lined up is key. I need to have some goal to work towards in the future or else there's no incentive to do the training now. I learned that the hard way at the Apple Blossom 10K this past weekend, as I had failed to maintain my fitness following the half marathon. And really, even with the 10K lined up, I still found it far too easy to not get up in the morning and run. Maybe it was because I thought a 10K was a race that, like a 5K doesn't require as much preparation. Maybe I was just lazy. Regardless, I got my butt kicked by that course so if I don't want a repeat of that in Wilmington, I've got to get back on schedule.
That being said, choosing races and determining where I want my running to go for the Summer also demands that I take the rest of my life into consideration. There has to be a balance between running and work, for example. Being 26, this is pretty much all I do anyways! I get up and run, go to work for 10-12 hours, come home and read some CFA study material, watch some TV and go to bed. What little free time I have I want to spend with Annie (until she leaves for the Summer) or friends, etc. Basically, the only time I have available to run is in the morning, which limits how far I can run (seeing as how I'm not the speediest of runners). That means that for the time being, the half marathon is my maximum distance. I just don't have the schedule or time to do runs longer than 5 miles during the week and don't want to get up at 4 AM to make the time, quite frankly.
All of which is OK with me. I like the half marathon distance as it doesn't require 18 weeks of training but is still a sizeable distance to run. So, the half marathon will be the cornerstone race of my season and I think I will plan on running three of them before December (the Georgetown to Idaho Springs in August, Baltimore in October, Richmond in November). Adding in some other distances will keep it interesting and keep me focused between the big races.
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