Random Running Thread

[OakLeaf]

Welp ... with the caveat that I've NEVER been motivated enough to keep my fitness up immediately after an event ... I would focus more on getting your weekly mileage back up, rather than worrying too much about running near race distance in your long runs. I've read a few places, and I've started to experience it as I experiment with different training strategies, that within reason, weekly mileage is really more important than the long run in isolation.

I've read that one of the more effective ways to return to action is to do your taper in reverse. Have not tried that - every time, no matter my intentions, I've always found myself needing a mental break and/or needing to get non-running stuff done around the house and especially physically taxing stuff in the yard/garden/woodlot, and my running-specific fitness has gone to h377. Sigh.

Then again, since you're not aiming for any time goals, you might do best to think of your second event as your main goal, and not taper at all for the first one. If you'll have run 12.5 before the first event, and if you don't plan to run it at a quicker pace than you've trained, it won't tax your body any more than an ordinary training run. Then you can go into your second event fully fit and not have to worry about the intricacies of peaking for and recovering from the first one.


I did a local 5K yesterday, a race I've done the past three years. Kind of a tough course, through an arboretum, all paved but with a LOT of elevation change. Took nearly a minute off last year's time, yay - if anything the temperature was just slightly warmer this year, but the rain last year meant that footing would have been a little sketchy in some places, which might have slowed me down. But I think some of it is residual fitness from the spring, and some of it is I'm still learning the distance even with as many 5Ks as I've done, particularly with this race where I'm better able to judge how hard to power up the hills. Doing a bunch of shorter races in lieu of speedwork for a non-goal race worked for me last year. But now I've kind of got a bug in my head about attempting a HM PR in October, and if that's going to happen I better start real training pretty dang soon ...