Mohican Week 8 & Spring RACE Line Up!

Originally I had planned to start running at the beginning of the week but after some thought I decided to take another couple days. The achilles has been feeling a lot better recently but I didn’t want to push anything. I still have time on my side. At least for another couple of weeks.  The plan is to keep it easy for another two weeks or so…that should give me a solid 14 weeks to push and prep for Mohican.

This week saw a lot of cross training, calf raises & dips, foam rolling, icing, and heating. Lots of fun right? I have actually enjoyed riding my bike more…if I am honest with myself I swung too far to just running and let myself get a little too imbalanced. Don’t get me wrong…I love to run and run a lot but I need to make sure I’m keeping things balanced. Lindsey has convinced me to pick up some swimming too.

I have also nailed down some of the races I am going to use as prep for Mohican. Some will be for training runs and some will be for fitness tests. The latter one is important. You need to be training at the fitness you have not the fitness you wish to have. If you are training above your fitness…it will bite you eventually.  Kind of like how I ran a little too much too soon and it bite with this Achilles. See how that works?

Here’s my plan:

March 22nd – Sam Costa Half Marathon. This race has been around in Indy for like 40+ years and we have never ran it. I am going to run it with Lindsey. She is using it as a fitness test/training run for Boston. It should be a good time.

April 5th – Hoosier Half Marathon. This will be a fitness test for me. I am going to run it hard. It will be hilly just like Mohican will be. Early April will give me a good idea of where I am and what I need to do to get ready for Mohican. We ran this half marathon in 2009, ran hard and had fun, but   am a totally different runner now.

April 12th – Carmel Marathon. Long training run. I am pacing the 3:15 group at the marathon. This will be my first go at pacing a marathon. I think it will be fun but I’m a little nervous about people relying on me. I’m not worried at all about being able to run 26.2 miles at 7:26 but the pressure of having people depend on me is kind of scary. In my opinion, a lot of people that use the pacers are people looking for that Boston Qual time. The BQ time is different from a time that gets you into the race. Historically, I think it is somewhere around 90 seconds that you need. For example, my BQ time is 3:05 but to actually gain entry into the race my time really needs to be more like 3:03:30. So if that is the case for people using pacers, the pacers should really have a set time of hitting, for example, 3:13:30 which would BQ and get them into the race. Not everyone using the pace group is looking for that Boston time,  but it is something interesting to think about. I guess I’ll feel my group out during the run and see what people are really aiming for.

May 10th – Dances with Dirt Gnaw Bone 50K – Mohican prep race. This will be my first time participating in a foot race longer then 26.2 miles.  I am going to use to it to test out my fueling an gear. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to use already but I need to see how it works logistically…like do I carry two handhelds? A light vest? These are the sort of things that I need to have figured out before I get to the start line in June.

June 21st – Mohican 50 Ultra. Game Day. 50 miles of single track in the summer with 6,400 feet of climbing. It should be a great time.

So my running…I did run this week! Twice. Like I said earlier I was going to start at the beginning of the week but I decided to give it a couple more days.

Week 8: Feb 24th – Mar 2nd

2 runs

7 miles

0 workouts

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Bike.

Wednesday – Bike and Swim.

Thursday – Ran. 3 miles. Nice and easy run with Cadence. I spent most of the run trying to decide how my Achilles felt. I think it felt fine.

Friday – Bike.

Saturday – (Rest) Really I spent the whole day moving boxes and furniture from the basement to a box truck. We are getting closer to being ready to put the house up. Thank god.

Sunday – Ran. 4 miles. Another easy run with Cadence. Felt better then Thursday. By the end of the run I wasn’t even thinking about my foot…so I take that as a positive sign of progress.

And HELLO Ice Beard.

Nothing too crazy this week…just getting back at it slowly. My plan for the current week is run Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Everything will still be easy pace. In fact, I need to go run now.

How’s everyone’s training going? Have you planned your race schedule? Anyone doing any of the races I am?

Glenn