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| Race photo from last Saturday's KC Royals 5K ... not sure what I was looking at??? |
Even though I'm only running five days per week, I'm putting in 72-75 miles every seven days. Actually, this week, I'll probably finish with 80. And even with all the double runs, three days per week, I'm still holding up okay, which is usually an indicator that I'm getting near my apex.
This morning's 12 mile Tempo Run was also a decent barometer of where I'm at right now. After a two mile warm up I averaged a 6:37/pace over the next 9 miles with the following splits ...
7:19, 7:11, 6:35, 6:22, 6:27
6:30, 6:25, 6:25, 6:18
That's not my fastest 9 mile stretch ever by any means, but it's pretty fast for me right now. Combine that with an Age Group win and 10th Overall at last Saturday's 5K ... and it all leads to my tank being almost full on the "race mode" gauge.
But the problem is that my Fall races don't get kicked off for another three weeks with the Plaza 10K in Kansas City. Maintaining fitness until then won't be an issue, but I always seem to struggle to keep it topped off for several weeks after that.
So this year, I'm really going to back off on high intensity workouts and primarily use my races to keep me sharp. I plan on mixing in a fair amount of speed and tempo work, mind you, but I'm really going to try to be more conscious than ever before of over-training. You can't keep the fruit ripe forever, but hopefully if I manage it a little better this year, I won't spend the winter recovering from self-inflicted bouts of tendinitis.
So here goes ... I'm fit and ready to race! The trick will be keeping the engine primed. Hope your training is going well too!
... Be Great Today!
It's awesome that you are so in tune with your body. I'm sure you'll do great! What about those bags that keep fruit from spoiling? Can you wrap yourself up in it? ;)
ReplyDeleteTeam Iven??? I can't say anything nice.
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