I don’t really know why, but for some reason I have been a little lazy when it comes to blog-related shenanigans lately. By ‘shenanigans’, I just mean ‘things’, but ‘things’ being a fairly boring word, I thought I’d spice it up a little. At any rate, I’ve really fallen behind on my blog reading and commenting, and I’m sorry about that! I’m usually much better about these things but recently I’ve just felt like I haven’t had any time at home to catch up. I also have a new page or two to create, and I need to re-do my blogroll since at the moment, it doesn’t include the blogs I read now, and also contains a bunch of sites that have apparently been abandoned.
Moving on, though, I finally went running yesterday! I was visiting my friend Mike in Philadelphia, and we went out for a 3.5 or so mile run. This was the first time I’d done any running since Thanksgiving and it. felt. great. I can’t believe I went so long without running at all. Hopefully I don’t have a lapse like that again. More than anything it just really affects my mood and the way I handle stress.
Anyway, as we were running I was thinking about how lately, I’d been feeling a little bit like a running failure, since I had planned on starting this post-marathon training plan, and had all these grand aspirations for myself. It dawned on me, though, as we made our way up one of many hills in Mike’s neighborhood, that I don’t have to do that training plan, and, more importantly, that not doing it doesn’t make me a failure. Basically, I decided to give myself permission to change my plans.
Instead of trying to build on a mileage base that I might not have in me at this point and work on increasing my speed and work on my stamina, I decided it would be a lot more practical to take one thing at a time. Really, I think this is the best way to make changes in your life even though you’d never know it because I tend to make sweeping declarations about how I’m going to completely overhaul everything (and then fail to do it because it’s an impossible goal). The outcome: I’m going to work in phases, the first one being focused on slowly and intelligently increasing my mileage by 10% a week. I think I can probably start at around 20 miles, and increase to 28-30 in 4-5 weeks. That should give me a firm foundation on which I can start working on other things.
To be honest, I feel really relieved about this new plan. I was holding myself to such a high standard before, like I *had* to be in marathon shape all the time. I’m really glad I was able to realize that that was not the best way to approach things, and make a change.
I’m going to work on a somewhat structured breakdown of what these 4-5 weeks will look like, since I work far better when I have a plan to follow. Once I’m finished, I’ll share it here.
Have you had to make a change of plans? How did you feel about it?
I came to run 
Très sage, comme toujours. J’ai bien hâte de voir ton plan!
i think it’s best to build base first, and then add in ‘quality’ (speed) work. i would consider building 10% for 3-weeks, and cutting back every 4th week.
ie:
20, 22, 25, 20
25, 28, 30, 20
28, 30, 30, 25
30, 30, 30, 20
or something like that. obv that’s not THE only way. takes a couple extra weeks, but sometimes your body needs that cutback.
then once you are at the 30, 30, 30, 20 week you can start adding in 1-2 quality runs per week.
just my $0.02, from my experiences, i’m no expert and won’t be offended if you ignore me 🙂
Lindsay, that makes total sense–thanks for that! That looks pretty solid, I’ll probably use it 🙂 You may not be an expert, but I’ve always thought you must know what you’re talking about!