Showing posts with label around the house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label around the house. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The long run vs. every other run in training

Today before work I had a short run of 1.57 miles. This is a picture from one of the entrances to San Gabriel Park.
This week's workouts so far:
Monday- 1.42 miles at Lake Pflugerville
.64 open water swim
Tuesday- 1.57 miles- (early morning route)

So, I noticed I tend to do a good job with slowly increasing my distance for my long runs when training. For example, for our last half-marathon, we had a 17 week training plan where we did long runs like such:
A- long run
B- little bit longer
C- little bit longer than B
D- rest week- easy runs, all shorter then the 3 previous weeks.
then repeat x times however

In the 17 weeks, we didn't really miss any of our scheduled long runs.
However, other then the long runs, we didn't really stick to any plan. Sure, I had pipe dreams of speed runs, hill repeats, mid-length runs and easy runs. But consistently, I just did a lot of short runs with a sprinkle of hill repeats, short/faster runs and occasional mid-length runs.
To get to my point sometime this century, I guess what I am saying is that I need to figure out a way to increase my distance of my runs during the week. I feel like on Sunday ( the day we usually do long runs) distance is the main event. I look forward and appreciate going further. I think the solution is to wake up earlier but does anyone else suffer from this during the week? I know that when preparing for a marathon, it is important to establish a good base, but I don't know the best way to do this when I feel like I'm not really  (yet) in enough shape to run a lot of miles during the week and during the weekend, and manage to have rest days.
Also, I really enjoy swimming as it makes my body feel better after a run and I don't want to sacrifice it that much but does that conflict with becoming a better runner? I feel like I hear so many mix messages on time advantage of cross-training vs. running more miles.