My Last Day of Willy Nilly

As many of you know from my blog, when I don't have a race to train for, my training is a whole lot of weird, whatever I feel like, not super consistent blah. This week, I did two crossfit workouts, 2 runs, 1 yoga class and a nike training club workout. It went like this:

Monday: 3.1 miles in 32:36 on a super hilly course
Tuesday: Nike Training Club - essentially 30 minutes of circuit training
Wednesday: Morning intervals with my Stoix running group, I also did a shoulder press workout at lunch
Thursday: rest
Friday: Crossfit - Fight Gone Bad style workout
Saturday: rest
Sunday: ?? I may try to get a little easy, not timed, don't care about distance run

My next big race is going to be the Rock'n'Roll Savannah on November 5th. I'm sure there will be others in between but that's the main goal. I have a 20 week training plan courtesy of Holly Di Giovine and that starts June 19th. Until then, I'd like to focus on getting a strong 6 mile base. I can do that now, but I'm hoping that by training for the next 7 weeks, I can get a little faster so the longer runs will be a little easier and more comfortable.

I've experimented with a couple of training plans but this is the type I continuously go back to and the one I'm sticking with from now on.

Speedwork: This is comprised of repeated intervals that range anywhere from 30 seconds sprints to 120 second sprints. Sometimes, they're up a hill, sometimes, they're downhill, sometimes they're flat. BUT, they is always a starting point that I return to and each attempt, I try to go further. That way, I'm building up intensity with each interval. My output is going to be around 85% or an 8-9 on a scale of 1-10

Temp work: This is very similar to above but the time intervals are between 2-8 minute so my output is going to be less. It will probably be 65-75% or a 6-7 on a scale of 1-10. I STILL use the same starting point so that I can build intensity by increasing distance each time. I also force myself to have a timed recovery which will help me build my cardiovascular strength and recovery time.

Long Run: Self Explanatory - this is my long run. Each week, I build upon distance, taper, then build again. That's why I like 20 weeks as opposed to 12-15 because it gives me time to reduce mileage and build up again. It makes my base stronger.

I obviously didn't come up with this on my own, this is the training plan Holly Di Giovine has given me and it made me PR by 9 minutes in my 3rd half. This will be my first full, so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm an average to slow runner that teeters around a 10 minute mile. As my distance increase, my time slows so my goal for this full is to finish under 5 hours. Ideally, I'd like to be around 4:30-4:40 so we'll see.

Lastly, I'm going to be trying to figure out how I want to attack the race. For my half, I ran 4 minutes, walked 1 minute and finished in 2:17:07. I'm not sure if I should do that for the full or if I should try some other things. One thing I was thinking about doing was running an 8/2 for the first 10 miles, a 4/1 the second 10 miles and then see how I feel the last 10k. So, I'm going to start my training doing that and adjust as my distance increase. If I can use this 7 weeks to get a strong 6-7 mile base, that will help. I did my last 10k in 60 minutes. It was kind of an easy course, only 1 uphill, but training in the foothills of SC will prepare me for any terrain :)

So... today, I can do whatever I want because starting tomorrow... I. AM. ON. A. REGIMENTED. SCHEDULE.

How do you train for races?
Have you done a full?
Any advice :)??