Thursday, May 3, 2012

Racing a Road Mile?! And training for everything under the sun

We're post-Boston.  What's next you wonder?  First of all, I'm constantly trying to figure ways to run with friends and teammates more often.  My work schedule is isolating most of the time.  One small remedy to that, is a return to canvassing for Environment NJ.  Holy Tree Hugging Batman!, you say to yourself.  Anis does something besides run, work in a running store, and plan every minute of his life according to when he can escape a sedentary activity...so he can go run?  Believe it kids, I do other things to.  Canvassing door-to-door in residential neighborhoods 2 days per week is a good alternative exercise.  You wear a backpack, you talk a lot, you run up and down lawns and steep driveways, sometimes up long steep roads that lead to the absurd monstrosities that people call a "house".  It's something I've done over the years, mostly during the summers.
But I've been running too. I haven't posted an update on training, because it's been very informal, my legs did feel like the 19yr old car that you're embarrassed to be seen driving in.

So, after some recovery time I will now run/race in the next month:
A 3k steeplechase, a 5miler, a road 10k, a trail 50k, The College Ave Road Mile! (you should too, it will be awesome!), a 34.2mile trail run(non-race), and a track race (3k sc, 10k, or 5k, maybe a relay leg?)... the next day.
The So-cal Road mile, cool!
 
Look at the Italian-American man beat everyone else. 
Jeff Perrella and I know the following: Italian+beard+running=AWESOME! 


The smart folks(coaches) in the audience say, this is a lot of racing in one month.  Well, yes, it is.  Many of these efforts will be great strength builders for some fast racing later this summer/fall.  How do you train for all this?  Run fast, run slow, run up, run down, jump over things you encounter during runs(or find some hurdles at a local track), vary everything, and don't do too much in 3-4days early in a week, what feels like 3-4 days of amazing training can turn into a week of feeling like crap and running only slow miles when you want to be doing some fast stuff.  It's that simple.
Some say, running one thing well is better than running many races with sub-maximal performance.  I say, that is boring, and I enjoy being the guy who can rip a 4:30 mile, do a 3k sc in 10mins, and generally go distances that most people don't like to do using a car.

1 comment: