Tuesday, January 25, 2005
A whole new direction
I've just returned from the CoolRunning/28 Racing team running camp, and have come back super-motivated, with a whole new direction. My two weeks off have given me time to ponder my goals for this year, the foremost of which was to run a 2:40 marathon, ideally at Canberra in April. Two weeks of lost training (and the time it takes to build back up to what was a pretty ambitious schedule) has pretty much ruled out a crack at Canberra.
But more significantly, I had to ask myself "why do I want to run a marathon?". The answers, such as it having more conversational value than a fast 10km, were pretty shallow. So if i drop the marathon fixation, and ask a simpler question "what do I want to get out of my running?", some more enticing answers come back.
"To be the best I can" might sum it up, if you add a little footnote that says "within the constraints of the rest of my life". So it's time to go with my strengths, and that strength is my speed. My actual 23 second 200m PB will never extrapolate into the 2:17 marathon predicted by the charts, so it's time to pick something a bit more tangible.
I have run some fast times over shorter distances (particularly 400 & 800m), but this sort of racing and training doesn't fit in with my personal life (track training two nights a week and all-day carnivals), and I think at 34, some of my speed is not going to come back to me.
This leads to the distance events, but those for which speed gives an advantage - namely the 3000/5000m. By focusing on these events, I can step up (10,000m, maybe even the odd half marathon) and down (1500m) to give a broad range of racing distances, and a whole bunch of new frontiers in the PB department (my 1:54 800m time is unlikely to be broken in this lifetime, but everything above this (such as my 4:08 1500m PB) have scope for improvement).
So I am now a 3000m runner. Dr Daniel Green (current Australian Marathon Champion), who convened the training camp, has set me a good program to follow, which whilst only slightly modifying my current schedule in terms of mileage and training week structure, should allow me to utilise my natural speed far more effectively, and have a memorable racing year in 2005.
For the sake of posterity, here are my goals for the year:
1. To break 9 minutes for 3,000m (PB 9:34)
2. To break 16 minutes for 5,000m (PB 16:08)
3. To break 33 mintes for 10,000m (PB 32:59)
4. To break 4 minutes for 1500m (PB 4:08)
The last one is only likely to happen if I decide to race track next summer, which is why it is a #4, despite being the toughest one on the list. From a comparative viewpoint, the 3000m goal is tougher than the 5k/10k goal, and these two should come if I focus on my 3000m time.
Because it's only January now, I have a lot of time to achieve these, and don't want to rush. My first aim is to get 7 weeks of consistent training in on my new program (which I will outline in a future post), and have a 5km race to check my progression. My recent 16:53 5km will act as the benchmark for comparison, and a CoolRunning 5km challenge in late March would be ideal.
So there you have it - the Sparkie agenda laid bare. Stay tuned to see how my progress goes over the coming weeks and months.
But more significantly, I had to ask myself "why do I want to run a marathon?". The answers, such as it having more conversational value than a fast 10km, were pretty shallow. So if i drop the marathon fixation, and ask a simpler question "what do I want to get out of my running?", some more enticing answers come back.
"To be the best I can" might sum it up, if you add a little footnote that says "within the constraints of the rest of my life". So it's time to go with my strengths, and that strength is my speed. My actual 23 second 200m PB will never extrapolate into the 2:17 marathon predicted by the charts, so it's time to pick something a bit more tangible.
I have run some fast times over shorter distances (particularly 400 & 800m), but this sort of racing and training doesn't fit in with my personal life (track training two nights a week and all-day carnivals), and I think at 34, some of my speed is not going to come back to me.
This leads to the distance events, but those for which speed gives an advantage - namely the 3000/5000m. By focusing on these events, I can step up (10,000m, maybe even the odd half marathon) and down (1500m) to give a broad range of racing distances, and a whole bunch of new frontiers in the PB department (my 1:54 800m time is unlikely to be broken in this lifetime, but everything above this (such as my 4:08 1500m PB) have scope for improvement).
So I am now a 3000m runner. Dr Daniel Green (current Australian Marathon Champion), who convened the training camp, has set me a good program to follow, which whilst only slightly modifying my current schedule in terms of mileage and training week structure, should allow me to utilise my natural speed far more effectively, and have a memorable racing year in 2005.
For the sake of posterity, here are my goals for the year:
1. To break 9 minutes for 3,000m (PB 9:34)
2. To break 16 minutes for 5,000m (PB 16:08)
3. To break 33 mintes for 10,000m (PB 32:59)
4. To break 4 minutes for 1500m (PB 4:08)
The last one is only likely to happen if I decide to race track next summer, which is why it is a #4, despite being the toughest one on the list. From a comparative viewpoint, the 3000m goal is tougher than the 5k/10k goal, and these two should come if I focus on my 3000m time.
Because it's only January now, I have a lot of time to achieve these, and don't want to rush. My first aim is to get 7 weeks of consistent training in on my new program (which I will outline in a future post), and have a 5km race to check my progression. My recent 16:53 5km will act as the benchmark for comparison, and a CoolRunning 5km challenge in late March would be ideal.
So there you have it - the Sparkie agenda laid bare. Stay tuned to see how my progress goes over the coming weeks and months.
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Good to hear from you again, Sparkie; you seem very excited with your new set of plans for racing 2005 & I wish you great success, which I'm sure you'll achieve. LL
It is a pleasure to see your goals, whilst many of the CR community aim at marathon after marathon, it is refreshing to see your new goals. All the best, so how many repeats of 800s are in your new program?
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