I think I'm back.
This entry was posted on 10/13/2011 11:41 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
After another few days off, I felt fantastic on my run this morning. I'm feeling recharged and ready to start a new training cycle. My plan is to re-set my base at a higher level. I am going to approach this from a new direction in hopes off gaining more speed and fitness over the winter. Instead of trying to run more mileage during the base phase, I'm going to try to run a consistent level at a slightly faster pace. Since 7:00 pace has begun to feel pretty comfortable, that is my new easy pace. If I can run most of my miles at or about this pace for maybe two months, I think I'll be ready to take on some faster workouts.
Part of the reason I probably felt so refreshed this morning was because I just returned from a solo camping trip to Assateague. I was able to totally disconnect for a few days. No school, no suburbs, no traffic, and no running. But I did walk A LOT. 4 miles to the campsite with about 30 lbs of gear on my back on Sunday. Monday I walked back to the car and refilled my water stores, and did some additional hiking around the island, then back to camp, probably 10 miles. Tuesday I just packed up and hiked back to the car, another 4 miles with full pack. Almost all of this hiking was done on the sand, though luckily the tide was right for a lot of it to be done close to the water on hard sand @ low tide. My legs were sore in all new places. After all that, running 6 today @ 42 felt like a breeze.
