it's been a long month

I have struggled and wondered and not known and questioned and, in the end, over-trained myself.

Tiba did not show up at the track during my last week in Culiacan, so I began the New Year with nothing besides me own running wisdom to draw on. Obviously, that wisdom hass grown significantly over the last 1 1/2 years, but I still know nothing.

I made a plan for my weekend long runs, which would have brought me to a 22-miler before the marathon. I looked at my old Escuinapa plan and my ol LaLa plan (which i never used), and i tried to put together a weekly program, but I couldn't remember exactly what I did in the Fall of '06 before the Maraton Pacifico!

I did some long runs in Edmonds on a treadmill because of the hideous weather, and i did some mile-repititions (6x1600@7:45 or so) and some 400's and all kinds of stuff. Since being in LA, i have done up to 8x800@3:40-3:50, 5x1000s@4:20, 400s at 1:40... i even did a 10-miler at 8:40. My fridays have been 15x200x200 fartlek. Everything was going well. Sometimes it is hard to stay motivated here because I have no one to talk with about all this stuff. I didn't realize how much a part of training is discussing! I generally don't have a problem doing the workouts, but when i don't have a coach, a program, or even a single friend here who knows what i'm going through... well... it's hard.

I did a 17-miler a few weeks ago at a decent pace (faster than 10 minutes for sure), but the following weeks' 15-miler at a 9 min pace was hard. I tried to back off, but I'm terrible at slowing down. Last weekend I was planning on a 20miler, but at 10miles i bonked. I was finishing a loop and refilling my water bottle, and I just crashed. I couldn't finish! I couldn't even do 1 more mile. It was the first time anything like that had happened, and I was really bummed.

Miraculously, Tiba knew what I was up to, as usual. He randomly contacted my old cell phone, which natasha has, and assigned a new program for me. Slava called him back, and he KNEW that I had been working too hard (i still don't know why he couldn't have contacted me sooner....) anyway, he said that it was my FRIDAYS which killed me, and overall going too fast (no more 4:20 kms for me!) and that i needed to slow down and build the resistance. He said the speed will be there on March 2. Right now i need the miles.

SO, my new and improved schedule it like this:

mon: 8km
tues: 6x1600@8:10
wed.:17km
thurs:12x400
fri:15x1x1
Sat:27km
sun:off
and next week the same, but 30 km ending the week.

If i can keep it slow (so far so good), i should be fine. My 17km this morning felt great. 10min miles, easy, no problem.

slow, slow slow...