March Training

Warm weather here in southeastern North Carolina the past week. Nonetheless, got some quality runs and workouts in.

Last Tuesday a meandering 12+ mile run mostly off road on the inner island trails and the Carolina Beach State Park trails. Slow to moderate pace and effort throughout the run, which included 2 x my hill circuit by Sugarloaf hill in the state park. Good cumulative fatigue by the end of the run, especially since 90%+ was on soft surfaces.

Wednesday evening put down 10 miles on the road course I use on Pleasure Island. 3 mile warm up (though by the 3rd mile I had dropped the pace down to 7:09/mile), followed by a 10k at steady state pace, and a short cool down. Averaged about 6:40/ mile, and was quite pleased and a bit pleasantly surprised by how the workout developed. Felt like I could have gone a little faster, and run a little longer without straining myself too much on the exertion scale. Though I did work fairly hard and was drained by the end of.

Friday ran 17 miles with Amie. Mix of roads and CB State Park trails. Probably about 65% roads/ 35% trails. Averaged around a 9:30/ mile pace. Longest run I have done since last July/ August. Legs held up pretty well, did have some more reoccurring pain in my inner right leg above the ankle, which I now think might be plantar fasciitis. Haven't had a visit from that particular sneaky devil in quite a long time. Mentally the run went ok, did struggle a bit in the middle miles with the all too familiar thoughts of how far we still had to run miles wise. Long runs still can be a bit of a challenge for me, and I sometimes need to adopt a better mindset I think going in to- though not quite sure of what specifically I should change.

But as runners we all have our weaknesses. Plus I have become re-invigorated not on only by doing, but reading again about the implicit importance of regular long runs in any runner's weekly and monthly training schedules. Whether or not one has a long race on the race calendar or not.

Thursday and Saturday were easy/ recovery runs that including striders. Ended the week with 61 miles- highest total also since last summer.

Monday celebrated my 42nd birthday by running 42 laps on the UNC Wilmington track with my good friend Colin (was his idea, and I jumped at). 2 miles warm-up, followed by alternating "on" and "off" 400s for 26 more laps, or 6.5 miles. The "on" laps we started at 1:40, and slowly progressed down to where the last 2 where run at 1:20, and 1:15. Again, good cumulative fatigue in the workout, and again was happy with how I felt, in that the "on" 400s didn't seem too difficult until the last 3 or so. Concluded with 8 more laps or 2 miles to bring the total to 10.5 miles, 42 laps. Happy birthday to me!

Hope everyone's running and training is going well as we head into springtime. Happy running!