Kind of a plan, kinda sorta maybe

I only have one really big goal for the rest of the year & that's to run a kick-ass race at CIM on Dec. 4. Now that I'm starting to put some miles back on my legs, a kinda-sorta plan is maybe kinda-sorta beginning to vaguely take shape. Ish.

Baby Marathoner Angela losing her marathon virginity at CIM '11. Memories!

Now - Aug. 14: Base Train, Base Train, Base Train. I have run races without base training, and I have run races after ONLY base training, but this year I'd kinda like to see what happens if I actually do both, the way that God & nature intended.

I am only on ~day 23 of this cycle & this plan will give me 60 days by Aug. 14. Back in fall 2014/winter 2015 I base trained for 80 days & it made a pretty remarkable difference in my running economy, and although I'm only a few weeks in, what's happening now does seem to track pretty well with what happened then.

Perhaps slightly better, even? Time will tell.

So that's encouraging (which, to be honest, I need. Seriously, all runs feel incredibly slow & sloggy right now).

Aug. 15 - Sept. 4: Add in speed, prep for Race to the End of Summer 10K.

It will only be 3 weeks of speed work, so I don't actually expect it to make THAT much difference in the 10K, but starting speed/tempo work in mid-August gives me 16 weeks of real marathon training, which is really as little as I want to do.

Really, I just want to use the 10K as a time trial/fitness gauge in order to be sure all my training paces are in the right place. I'm not *super* excited about the fact that this race is in San Jose in early September, but at least it's flat, paved, has only one real turn, & starts at 7:50am, so maybe it will not be awful.

Sept. 5 - Oct. 22: Slog away at marathon training, run a sick half on 10/23.

That is, I'm *hoping* I'm still capable of running a sick non-goal half in the midst of marathon training. I've done this twice before and run sub-1:40s, but then again I tried it earlier this year & ran the second slowest half of my life. So.

Here's hoping the fact that it's late October & thus NOT likely to be 80F will make some sort of difference.

Oct. 24 - Dec. 4: Eyes on the prize.

I will probably spend these last six weeks or so mostly praying to the injury gods.

St. Pio, patron saint of pain & suffering.
Stay with me, man.