A Lean and Hungry Look

What's your plan for this year, training-wise. I expect you to win the slam.

You're more confident in me than I am, Paul! Thanks for the kind words. My plan is generally to increase my weekly mileage over last year's but to limit myself to two hard days a week (I did three last year and felt physically and mentally worn out all the time and generally didn't enjoy the sport as much.) I used a coach last year, but I'm going to do it on my own this year so that I can tweak my workouts based on how I'm feeling from week to week. We'll see if it works! What's your plan?

Well, I believe in you. Too bad you are not in my age group because age groupers in the top 3 overall don't count as age groupers which would have improved my odds at an age group placing. I've got some lingering tendinitis which is the result of 20 some odd years of muscle imbalance which I'm trying to work on. However, I'm finding that the going is slow. I am hoping to get and remain healthy and consistent. I wish I could say that I was more dedicated at following a plan, but I always seem to just sort of do whatever, trying to get in 2 or 3 big workouts a week. (I do like the Tinmann principles that Paul Peterson followed, but don't follow them religiously.) I would like to get faster, so I'll be following your lead.

I'm a big believer in figuring out what works for you (in terms of mileage, workouts, and in relation to the non-running aspects of life). With that in mind, when I did the Slam in '06, I seemed to improve when I made three changes to my training:

1. I made my easy days easier. Earlier in the season that year I was doing most of my "easy" runs at 6:30-6:50 pace, but switched after the first 4 marathons--I did 7 that year--and rarely dipped below 7-minute pace on easy days after that, usually hovering between 7:20-7:40.

2. I made my hard days harder (I hadn't done much tempo or speed work at faster than marathon pace until after the 4th marathon that year).

3. I introduced marathon-pace tempo work in the second half of my long runs.

I forgot to mention one other change I plan to make to this year's training: hill work. Last year, I hardly did any. I think that was a big mistake that resulted in some horrid splits in the middle third of St. George this year.