The thing about running is that it really lays bare just how much worse you are than you used to be when you come back after a long absense or simply get older. Or in my case both of those. If you play a sport like soccer or Ultimate it's maybe less obvious? Less in your face? Maybe you notice you're a little slower chasing the ball, etc. You're a bit more sore the day after a game. But running presents you with several decimal places of precision how much slower you are than you were before.
In July, I added a weekly baby interval session for a bit of variety in my workouts, bringing me to four runs per week after my C25k-ish build-up in May and June. Friends, I am running these intervals at a pace that — when I set my marathon PR in 20214 — was my easy long run pace. 400m intervals leaving me breathing hard at a pace I maintained for hours at a time when I was a young, spry 41 year old runner. My current easy run pace is like 40% slower than it was back then. Granted, I am 12 years older and around 22 kg heavier than when I was in marathon shape but still.
I suppose the bright when you're slow and out-of-shape is you see solid improvements fairly quickly. One could be optimistic and almost see that fast progress as motivating...
July
So yeah, July has gone without any hiccups. We had a couple of heat waves, but Winnipeg has been spared the worst of the wildfire smoke that's been suffocating much of Canada. I think I bumped one workout to the next day because of the Air Quality Index but I haven't had to skip any.
My rough goal was to carefully and slowly build up the length of my weekend long run I've been following the standard rule of thumb of not increasing your mileage more than 10% week-over-week, although I recently learned there isn't a lot of data to back that up! Yes you should be prudent as you add mileage but there doesn't seem to be much correlation between 10% weekly increases and injury rates for runners. According to Göran's video, what you need to be careful about is not increasing your long by more than 10% week-over-week. I'm hitting 90 minutes for my long run this week and I'll probably keep it there through September and October while building up volume in my mid-week runs ( the new 5th weekly run which will start at 20 minutes easy).
Here's the schedule I set for myself for August:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 3 - Aug 9 | 45 min | 5 x 3 min | 'Tempo' | 80 min | |||
| Aug 10 - Aug 16 | 45 Min | 6 x 400m | 'Tempo' | 90 min | |||
| Aug 17 - Aug 23 | 45 min | 20 min | 6 x 400m | 'Tempo' | 90 min | ||
| Aug 24 - Aug 30 | 45 min | 25 min | 8 x 400m | 'Tempo' | 90 min |
My 'tempo' runs simply feature a warm-up, then a block where I am running at what I guess would be my current 5k race pace. Ie., faster than my easy pace and slower than my interval pace. After I've acclimatized to 5 runs per week I'll probably stretch out the duration of the tempo block in anticipation for half-marathon training.
The Hypothermic Half
Speaking of half-marathons...
The Hypothermic Half is a February half-marathon and my favourite local race. Since its timing makes it a nice target for my running 'comeback' and when the temperature was hitting 37 Celsius I was fantasizing about snow...long story short I registered for the Hypo for February 2027!
I'm going to try to beat my time from the last time I ran it (in Feb 2024), which should be a fairly soft target. If I am remembering correctly, I had a bit of an off day in 2024 and ran it a fair bit slower than I was expecting. I was looking at my logs from summer and fall 2023, and I feel as though this year I am a little ahead of where I was then in terms of fitness. This bodes well!
Come November, I'll draw up a training plan and until then I'll work to build up my body so it's able to handle the mileage needed to train for a half. I'll keep upping my weekly mileage and make sure I can handle five days running per week (it looks like in fall 2023 I stuck to four days). And I'll keep up with the intervals and tempos because they're fun and hopefully help me get a little faster over all.
I'm having fun!
My brain has been very running focused the past few weeks, unfortunately to the detriment of other hobbies... But when I finish a workout I've been like "I can't want until my next run on Thursday!" so for the moment I'll ride the enthusiasm, even if I am much, much slower than I was years ago!
