Back to Basics

Today was a 4.5 miler at a very easy 8:15 pace. Zero shin pain.

In retrospect, I was an idiot in January. Too many days running. Too fast. Too soon to dive into a speed and tempo workout after too little base training. It was a train wreck waiting to happen.

But all is not lost - not by a long shot. This January had many more miles than last January and I'm predicting a better February this year than last as well.

Lots of easy aerobic work over the next eight weeks should set me up for a healthy summer of racing, which I'm thrilled about.

Incidentally, on today's run I listened to Phedippidations - episode Fdip126, which is all about base training. It's a little bit scary how little I understood about base training and running slow until today. I mean, I read a lot of running crap, but there was a ton of good explanation in this podcast that hadn't sunk in until today. Needless to say, I'm more than cool going slow for a while. If you're in base training mode (though the most clever of you are already at the end of this phase of training) give it a listen. It's a winner.

Comments

  1. Bill6:23 PM

    Glad to hear your shins are doing better.

    I really enjoyed that episode of Fdip as well. I thought John Ellis' explanation of the capillary building response to excess oxygen being available but not used was excellent.

    I'm not always a fan of Steve Runner's rambling thoughts, but I think he (or in this episode, his friend) usually does a good job of researching the central theme for each episode.

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  2. Ron11:38 PM

    thanks for the link, hadn't come across that site yet.

    I just ended my base training using exactly the method talked about in that podcast. I was lucky enough to understand the concept from reading Galloway last summer. But unfortunately didn't really apply it until this past base phase -13 weeks. If I had stayed consistent through the summer I would be lightyears from my current capacity.

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  3. Anne Findlay3:00 PM

    great news about your shins. You were smart to cut back and not push it. Happy training.

    Base training is really hard for me. I have to take off my foot pod so I don't know how fast (er, slow) I'm going. Then I can just go by my heart rate.

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