Running Program - Week 4

For the first time with increasing my mileage, I felt slightly challenged this week. Then again, I don't know if I would chalk it up to being challenged, or just having a bad run day. My Tuesday (28 minute) and Saturday (42 minute) runs were the only two that challenged me. Mostly the Tuesday run. I'm not sure if I missed out on some sleep or ate too much garbage on Monday, but that run kicked my butt. I wasn't feeling too hot for the Wednesday easy run. Then come Saturday, I think the reason that was a bit harder was running a bit faster than I probably should have. I feel that in my current condition, my long runs should be somewhere between a 9:15 min/mile and 9:30 min/mile pace. I ended up running just under 9 min/mile.

Anyway, even with those two, I feel comfortable to increase to 15/30/45 minutes for this coming week. I'm still not sure where I will hold steady. I was initially hoping to progress slowly enough (no more than 10% increase each week) to run a half marathon before the running season ends. However, after looking at the best possible scenario (continually increasing 10% every week), the earliest I would have a long run the distance of a half marathon falls on week 15. That would put me in the last week of October/first week of November. And that's only IF I were to increase every single week. I'm not sure I could keep that kind of progress going that long as I'm sure I will hit some weeks where I won't feel ready to increase and will repeat the same times one, two, maybe three weeks in a row. Maybe I could find a 10k to do.

It's odd, this is really the first time I've been running without a real goal in mind. Like I explained in my last post, when I started up running I was going for a 10k. Did way too much way too soon and paid the price. When I started up again this year, my initial goal was to do a Sprint Triathlon. But, as in a previous post, triathlon training has to be put on hold for a few more years. So, for now, I just run. :) And while doing that, I look to improve little by little. I guess my big goal is to run a marathon next year. I plan to continue to improve and increasing mileage with this running program through the winter. Which will be a lot easier to do with the purchase of a treadmill a few weeks ago. So, I look forward to doing better and better to be in great shape next year. Maybe do a half marathon early on, throw in some 5k or 10k races, and ultimately shoot for a marathon.