February 2017 Running Goals

With my “Best 5K” 8-week training plan drawing to a close, it’s time to look ahead. Enter, the “Fastest 5K” 8-week training plan posted above. Down comes the old pink chart from the workout/motivation wall, up goes the blue.

While last month was all about building endurance, this month I’m hoping to boost the speed a bit. I’m not expecting miracles — seeing any kind of improvement will be satisfying enough. (If there ARE some speed miracles, though, I will of course GLADLY ACCEPT THEM!) Endurance still plays a factor this month; you can see I’ll also be working up to a longer run of 7 miles. So I guess this is a decent plan for training for a 10K, too. Two-for-one! Score.

If you follow along with me on Twitter, you know I have gone back and forth, back and forth about whether to bump up to the half marathon training distance instead. After looking again at this new plan, though, this looks like the no-brainer next step for a relatively new runner like myself. That’s not to say a half is off the table for later this year. Let’s just see how these next few months go first. I don’t want to try too much, too soon, and then get derailed by an injury for weeks or months.

When I first looked at this plan a little over 8 weeks ago, it looked a little too challenging. Now I look at it and think, “yeah, this is challenging, but I can do this.” Progress!

January 2017 Recap

Well, kids, I am pleased with my first running month of 2017. I have been following the “Best 5K” training plan above since December and am in the last week of it now. I have steadily increased my weekly mileage and have been able to stay on track for all 8 weeks, even through the busy holiday season and these cold, gray winter months. Let’s hope I can continue it into February.

Highlights for this month:

• Total mileage: 72.1 miles
• 5K race on January 1 — 11:16 average pace, came in 346th out of 472 runners. Nothing to brag about really. I don’t even think I cracked the top 10 in my age group. This race was a lot more competitive than the one I ran in September. I knew that going in. But I ran the entire thing (couldn’t do that at my first race in September), set my 2017 5K race pace baseline, and had a lot of fun at the race.
• Successfully finished another 8-week training plan & am ready to tackle the next one!

Even though the plan above says this coming Saturday is a 5K Race day, that’s not actually happening. There aren’t any in my immediate area this coming weekend. Still, I am going to clock myself in a “simulation race” to see if my speed has improved any since my January 1 race. I honestly don’t think I’ll see a huge difference. This month was more of a triumph in adding distance versus adding speed, but we’ll see in a few days!