Thin Line Between Love and Hate…

…well, actually, not such a thin line. It’s actually 8 lanes wide.

I took a long hard look at my last marathon time and tried to come up with a training plan that addressed my weakest areas. Without rehashing my whole race report from the marathon, suffice it to say that I held it together for the first 19 miles only to blow up at the end and just barely squeak out my back-up goal of a sub-4 hour marathon.

I wanted to come up with a plan that balanced my desire for more long distance stamina with my desire to get faster on my average weekend 5 and 10Ks. I was successful, I think. Problem is, now that I have that training plan, I actually have to stick to it and do the work.

My training plan calls for 4 days per week of running (one long day, two “easy” days, and one speed day - either mile repeats, or tempo runs.) Today was a speed day which meant that I had to head to the high school track for mile repeats. Perhaps the only thing I hate MORE than running on a track is running on a “dreadmill.” But, if this is what it is going to take to get to my goal, then I’ll do it.

Track workouts suck

As far as the actual workout went - not too bad I guess. I ran an 800m warm up and warm down with three mile repeats with 800m recoveries in between. My mile repeats were pretty consistent (6:58, 6:53, and 7:01). I’m not going to lie though, the satisfaction of a good workout only partially mitigates my overall disdain for track runs. Good news is that tomorrow I have a nice 12 miler scheduled.