Planning
I love getting and writing a plan. Jerry sent me the upcoming month’s plan early this week. Ahh, nothing more fun :).
There are 4 short weeks where I’ll focus on my 5k with 2 or 3 races (two for sure, both at GAC). Luckily, I put in a few quality mileage weeks before April began so I’ll be able to keep mileage lower (70-80) during these weeks. That scares me a little bit, I guess, just because I want to make sure I can transition from this to Grandma’s marathon training – but I know it’ll be fine. I’m feeling strong & handling volume well, and noticed this last week that I’m feeling faster & more fit. I wonder if that’s coincidental that I feel that way after having increased my mileage. I’m either a true mileage runner & running more means running faster, or I’ve just conditioned myself to believe that.
I printed off splits for my goal 5k, and my eyes bugged out a little: 5:33 pace/mile, 82 (high) quarters. Wow. That’s REALLY fast. For some reason I had 5:35-5:38 in my head before I looked at it again today. Even though it’s just a few seconds/mile faster, my brain still goes: really? Really?!?
After my last 5k on the 28th of April, I’ll transition into marathon-mode (don’t worry, I’ve been doing a few long/hard tempo runs so won’t be coming into the marathon cycle cold – and they’ve gone really well, all 5-10 secs/mile faster than this time of year last year). There are 6 or 7 weeks before Grandma’s. I don’t have the day-to-day plan for that yet, but I do know there will be a couple 100+ mile weeks in that. Yikes. (But another part of me says, “Yes! I can’t wait! I love mileage & beating my body”)
As I was reminded, those kind of miles require stretching my rest days. I have to be careful, since I know that’s one of the reasons behind my Achilles injury before the Trials. I noticed my Achilles for the first time on Sunday’s run (no pain, it just felt “different”) so took Monday off. I’ve been taking more time to stretch & do strength work since, as I had allowed myself to be lax with both for two long.
Well – just one short week until the first 5k. Gotta get to it!
P.S. The Museli recipe from this weekend (from allrecipes.com, edited a little). It’s great with plain greek yogurt and a little sweetener/sugar! (It’s my “substitute” for ice cream!)
Original Recipe Yield 8 cups
Ingredients
4 1/2 cups rolled oats (we used old fashioned slow-cook)
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup oat bran
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I omitted)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds (I omitted)
Not in the original recipe but I added:
1/4 cup flax seed (we have a lot around the house for some reason, and thought it couldn’t hurt)
1 cup instant oatmeal
And another big handful (or 3) of slow cook oats — (I like museli with a lot more oatmeal)
Next time I might get ambitios and chop up some almonds for it (since I think whole almonds would be too large, but slivered might be a little weird?) – we’ll see 🙂
I doubled this & made it in an ice cream pail. Works great!
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/muesli/
