Slow & Steady (But With New Shoes!)

I am still super pumped about having had such a fun and successful trail race Saturday, and about hearing & reading everyone's fabulous SF Half / Marathon stories (jealous!). My quads and hamstrings are still tight from the giant hill and I am having just a touch of lingering soreness in my left calf, but other than that, I feel great. Also, my new shoes just arrived! (Apparently UPS tried to deliver them yesterday at 7:20 pm, which I didn't even realize they did, but no one was home.) I'm planning on giving my calf the rest of today to rest up, & will then try to get in a run every day for the rest of this week.

My plan for the next few months is as follows:

• Train hard for Summer Breeze 10K on August 27.
• Train hard for Race to the End of Summer 10K on September 18.
• Begin half marathon training in earnest -- this gives me 8 weeks to get ready for Clarksburg Country Run on November 16.
• If all goes well, run the Cal International Marathon on December 4. The proximity to Clarksburg would make this kind of a tight/weird schedule, but I feel like it can be done.

Part of the purpose of the 10K Summer Tour has been to create some semblance of base-building going into training for longer races. Yes, I've been doing some speed / tempo work as well, but I'm also gradually getting myself back to the point where I can run at least 30 miles a week without winding up injured every ten days or so. I'm hoping that backing up a targeted eight-week half marathon program with four months of pretty solid & consistent running will a) help keep me healthy as I increase mileage and b) set me up for faster times, since I'll be starting out in better condition overall. To that point, I've been in no rush to increase mileage this summer. I've wanted to get up to & stay at around 30 miles, and then very gradually increase from there if things seem to be going well, but that's pretty much it. So I think that since I raced Saturday, I'm going to focus on just trying to get some easy / moderate mileage this week, and maybe a little speed work on Thursday or Friday if I'm feeling really good (since there won't be time for my usual rest day-track day-rest day speed sandwich). After that, I will shoot to get in 30+ miles during the weeks of the 7th and 14th, and maybe slightly less the week of the 20th (race week). (More on the shoes after I have a chance to actually run in them. ;)