getting buff

Monday, September 18, 2006

Planning into Shape

Before the run yesterday one of the other ausrunners asked me what my plan was for the race. My approximate answer was "MmmmmIdunno". In the great spirit of experimentation, I have determined to see whether having some sort of plan or intentionality about the race will make a difference for the next one.

So the finely tuned plan is as follows:
  1. Long runs. I have put together a schedule of runs over the coming month, still increasing my time but observing the 10% rule. This should see me doing another three runs of 80-90 mins. The long runs increase my confidence because I know that I have actually done that distance before and longer which is a big mental boost on the day

  2. Short runs. Over the past month I have missed far too many midweek runs. The body complains when I string running days together too often so if I do miss a run, I often find it difficult to reschedule. But for the next month I am going to be very good about the midweek runs and try to avoid hayfever and all those things which tend to put me off track

  3. Preparation. Okay, I am going to be sensible this time about making sure I am stretched and hydrated and not just turn my mind to these things when I rock up on the morning.

  4. Outfit. Running in the heat is that much more difficult when you are carrying extra kilos so, even though exposing the flesh makes me pretty self conscious, the half tights, t-shirt and dark coloured hat didn't do me any favours when I was feeling hot. So over the next month I will experiment with various shorts options to find something that doesn't chafe and hopefully doesn't make me look like lumpy sausages.

  5. Enjoyment. Put SiS1 behind me and write it off as a bad day. Concentrate on enjoying myself at SiS2 and don't load up with too many expectations. If I meet the goals that I had for SiS1, then I will already show an improvement of over 10mins which is nothing to sneeze at.

  6. Practice. I am going to see whether I can swing it one day to go and run the course again, just to replace the ugly memory with a nice one.


I am actually trying to convince Hub to come along and run the 4km at SiS2. He has been doing a run/walk program which has had a few hold ups, but has just managed to achieve running for 30min non-stop. He normally works on Sundays, but has the day of SiS2 off so is half considering coming along to cheer me on, but I am trying to convince him to sign up himself.

If he only had signed up for the series, we could have matching lurid blue running tops.

5 Comments:

I was thinking too, none of did any kind of warm up beforehand which I don't think helped matters, well unless you count the walk from the car.
Yo go for it hub - you know you want too!
well put - especially points 3, 4 and 5.
BTW no-one is looking at your legs except to say, good effort mate! So get into the shorts. Drifit if possible (I'm so precious about my drifit LOL)
cheers
Looks like a damn fine plan to me, and I am a big fan of having a training plan!

You have the right attitude and I am sure you will do much better at SIS2. And this time next year when you enter again and look back on your blog you will see how far you have progressed!

Keep it up and definitely try running the course again just for the heck of it.
Fabulous plan deege. I am going to have devise one as well!
Definitely get some cooler gear because that heat near darn killed us :)!!

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