Spring Training Plans

As I reflect on my last few races and the warm weather is become more consistent I have been beginning to think about how I can improve my running.  Two things come to mind: Hills and Speed.

Hills have always been my nemesis.  I hate them.  But then again I used to hate running.  I love running now and I will soon love hills.  It's as simple as that.  I need to maintain the same speed and tempo on the hills as I do on the flat distance.  They are hard, but if I want to improve my times, I will have to work on hills.  Let's face it, I'm not running in Holland.  This is Virginia and there are hills...everywhere.  Instead of fighting them and avoiding them, I will be embracing them.  I am going to seek out the hills and kick their asses!  If you have any suggestions of good hills in the area, let me know!

Speed is something I can do, but it's hard to maintain.  I enjoy getting in a pace and sticking with it.  Pushing myself is a challenge.  A challenge I am going to take.  I know that I can do it because I have done it in training runs, but I get nervous during races to push too hard.  I talked to my chiropractor today and he suggested I run with a metronome to count my beats.  He said that I should be running around 180 beats per minute, but I should push myself to 200 and then bring back down to 180.

As well as running with a metronome, I am going to make sure I do one tempo run a week.  This will be hard work, but if I do it right, it will pay off.  The first one I want to try will be a 1 mile warm up, 2 miles with a 5 min fast pace, 5 mins slow pace, then 1 mile cool down.  I am planning on doing my first one this week.  With each week I will add another mile.  Eventually, I will switch over to running a warm-up mile, then a consistent faster 4 miles and then a cool down mile.

The journey of a runner is always changing because we always want to improve.  When you see the results of the first change, you move on to the next.  I am determined to improve.  The change will come!