Up for the challenge by FatFrank

With spring comes the time to sit down with the coach and schedule the training plan and of course the racing calendar. I think that writing down my objectives will only keep me focused thru the year and will remind me of what I thought was feasible at this point and hopefully I’ll be even faster than what myself and my coach have set as targets.

The company I work for (ASICS) is sponsoring the 21K and 5k in Mtl on the 19^th of April. We’re sending a good contingent of athletes, especially on 5K, so I’ll definitely kick-off the year with that one. Anything faster than the 15:14 that I ran on that course last year would be great.

Then, depending on how my body reacts to the mileage increase, I could very well try out my first half marathon in Quebec city on May 3^rd. Hard to say what to expect and we haven’t discussed about any objective in terms of time but I secretly think I can drop a good 1h11-low depending on the pack running it.

Next will be the Ottawa 10K. That one is a great race with tons of fast guys to run with. Improving on last year’s 31:43 is the primary objective but I believe that I’m gonna give it a shot and start the first 5k in about 15:30 and hopefully get something around 31:15.

I will then take a good 7 weeks without competing to focus on training and throw in a couple weeks at 180km. I’ve never been accustomed to running really high mileage so we’ll have to periodize it perfectly to avoid injury. We talked a bit about the workouts and here’s a bit what I’ll have to do in a hard week.

Mon (am- 50min easy + pm 60 easy with strides)

Tue (30 min easy +2x4x600m@ 1:46 + jogg 30min)

Wed (am- 45 min tempo run + pm. 5k marath pace + 10x1000m progress 3:25 to 3:05 + 5k easy + 3k @ 3:05/k)

Thu (am- 40 min easy + pm 1hr30 with pace variation 4:15 with burst @ 3:20)

…and so on.

It’s a huge difference to what I’m used to, which includes a lot more track stuff, much more speed and a lot less mileage but I think I’ll get used to it.

Next race will be a 10 miler in Toronto on the 19^th of July and a 52min is the targeted time over there.

I’ll jump back on the shorter stuff by mid august in order to keep the high mileage in training while competing shorter distances. So the 5K Endurance in Montreal is scheduled for Aug 12 and a 14:50 is possible on that fast course.

The next two will be tune-ups for the fast coming Chicago marathon. I’ll use the NYC Half marathon on August 30^th to see what I’m worth. That race is fast so by that point I think I’ll be in shape to run a sub 69 min, which is about a 3:17/km pace.

Two weeks later, I’ll run the Mtl Oasis half marathon and probably try out my marathon pace to see how comfortable I am at 21km on a 3:27 pace. It should not be too hard on the body so with about a month before the big dance I should be right where I want.

Finally, the Chicago Marathon will be the piece de resistance but for now the first step is to get my standard to be eligible for the Top 100 which will give me a great spot on the start line in front of all the Corrals.

So that’s the plan, now let’s hope everything goes as planned.