TRAINING WEEK 1 – March 20 – 26, 2010

The following is the training schedule I am working from to get ready for the Bolder Boulder, considering I haven't run in... well, a while! Please take care of yourself, drink plenty of water and listen to your body! This training program comes from the "Bronze 5K and 10K Training Schedules" from The Complete Book of Running for Women. By all means if you have something that is working for you already, stick with it! Don't fix what's not broken.

Your runs may fall on different days. Our group runs are considered the long run and will typically fall on Saturdays. Watch your email for our first group run on March 27th!


Saturday, March 20 - Long run: 3 miles
Sunday, March 21 - Recovery run: 2 miles
Monday, March 22 - Rest: 0 miles
Tuesday, March 23 - Pace run*: 3 miles
Wednesday, March 24 - Easy run: 2 miles
Thursday, March 25 - Easy run: 0-2 miles
Friday, March 26 - Rest: 0 miles

*Pace workouts help build endurance and strength as well as increase speed. I recommend including these in your training schedule, but consider your own goals first. These workouts are not sprints; they simply include picking up the pace for a specified distance.

WEEK 1 PACE WORKOUT
First some terminology...
Easy/recovery pace is just what it sounds like. I’m comfortable running at this pace and I can carry on a conversation.

Race pace is the pace at which I would run a 5K. So I’m running fast but I should be able to sustain distance at this pace. It’s not a 50 yard dash pace. Make sense?

So for week 1, here is what your pace workout looks like for 3 miles total:

1 mile at easy pace

4 x 400 meters (recover for 200 meters) – so that looks like this:
::400 meters at race pace (1)
::200 meters at recovery/easy pace
::400 meters at race pace (2)
::200 meters at recovery/easy pace
::400 meters at race pace (3)
::200 meters at recovery/easy pace
::400 meters at race pace (4)
::200 meters at recovery/easy pace

½ mile easy

REMEMBER: 400 meters equals ¼ mile. So you can still do this on a treadmill if you don’t have access to a track. On a standard outdoor track, 1 lap equals ¼ mile or 400 meters.

A final note…
Don’t overwhelm yourself! If this is too crazy for you to get your mind around, just get out there and run! Let’s keep our focus on God and he will take care of everything else!

Happy trails!