Workin' for the Weekend

In spite of a rough week that included a sick child and some restless nights, I’m feeling pretty good heading into the weekend but very much looking forward to a couple days off. Of course tomorrow I’ll be at Virginia Tech for several hours working the second indoor meet of the season. This one looks to have some pretty good competition, so it should be a little more exciting than last weekend. Hopefully there will be some good races, but mostly I just hope everything runs smoothly (at least when it comes to the races I’m involved with).

On the running front, I finally seem to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not out of the woods yet by any means, but I’ve run the past three days in a row, going 3, 3.5, and 4 miles respectively. The first of those runs occurred Tuesday night was my first pain free run in at least 11 weeks. The last two haven’t quite been pain free, but the pain has been very dull and sporadic, both good signs. At this point my plan is to continue onward as long as things don’t get worse. Hopefully by the first of February, I’ll be ready to start actually training again. That will be good timing, because I’ve got a pretty full work schedule up until then including a couple after work meetings.

If all goes well, I’m looking to put in 3-4 weeks of just running, gradually increasing the mileage over that time. Once I feel like my legs are under me, I’ll start slowly but surely implementing my new training plan. I’ve gotten some great advice from Steve Taylor, coach at the University of Richmond, and will be returning to the type of training I did back when I did some of my best racing (I was basically following his training program back then as well) with a few new twists. One of the big goals is to get my turnover back, something that will help me regardless of the distance I’m racing, so I’ll be working towards that end and will have more quality to my training with a little less volume. I’m really looking forward to it, but I know it’s a process and I’ve got to be patient getting back to full strength and then remain patient while I let the training do its job. I’m confident that as long as I keep that in mind and stick to the plan I’ll see big results come later this year.

That’s all for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!