Acclimatizing

Wow after a period of weeks which seemed like months the weather has lightened up and given us what we might normally seem like dreary weather of clouds and sun breaks and temps in the 50's, after running in the 30's to low 40's with rain this weather almost seems balmy.

This got me to thinking about acclimatization. This is a very important part of training, preparing yourself for harder running, acclimatizing. We do hill workouts to help us prepare for hills, we do speed work to prepare for running fast and long runs to prepare yourself for longer runs. Simply if you run 10 miles 3 seems pretty easy where when a lot of you started running 3 seemed like a lot. Like the weather if you run harder or farther than you're used to then slower running or running shorter seems easy but it's faster or further then before like running in bad weather makes so so weather great. I know that a lot of you newer members know after you've done a couple of hill works that the hills in your normal runs seem a lot easier.

I figure that if I can put you out of your comfort zone a couple of time a week maybe the bar will rise and now your comfort zone is at another level , hopefully higher so that now you running everything a little faster or farther but it seems like it was earlier which is great because now you're getting fitter which means you're getting faster so hopefully the bar keeps getting higher.

So remember that when your doing your workouts that the is more to doing these workouts then just running you're acclimatizing to the to the training as we have this winter to the weather.

Mid week, It's not always about the miles.

The mid week workouts are posted. As unusual there are basically three workouts going on. Most will be running hills with some on the track running some 800's and other doing some strides and tempo runs. Remember if you want to see what your buddies are doing I post an overall view here. I've sorted it by planned race.

As we get further into the spring for those that are looking to run faster for their marathons and half's it's very important to remember that the best way to get them (faster times) is to focus on the intensity of your training and not so much on the volume. Now I'm not saying that you need to run hard everyday but on those planned harder days it's important that you maximize those, those are the workouts that are going to make you faster. Oh if you put in a ton of miles you'll get faster but not as quickly as you would by doing some shorter faster running. So these mid week workouts are very important.

One thing that is very important for these workouts is to plan a little bit for them. That mens if you're running on the track having an idea of what the workout is and at what pace do you run the workout. For those that are running the 800's on the track this week they should worry about the pace that you run them and also the recovery between each which is as important as how fast you run them. The main reason I put the suggested workouts on the training tables page on the web site was to help you plan for your workouts by giving you based on your race goals, times to hit with the recovery.

If you're running hills know how you want to approach the workout, how many do you want to do? How are you goig to run the?

If you're running a tempo run what pace do you want to run it? Again the training tables page will help here as I have put up paces based on your 2 min TT that will help give you the pace to run them.

You'll find that if you plan just a little it before the workout that it will be a bit easier and I think that by planning and thinking about it before hand you can visualize the workout a bit which always makes it a tad easier.

I put up a slide show of the pics I took out at the RRS Love'm or Leave'm 5k on Sunday. Thanks to those that volunteered, the race ended with just under 2000 entrants your help was greatly appreciated

Mid week, NB Jackets II, Volunteers needed, Roster

Well I look at this weeks workout as the most important one so far this year (rain or shine). You've had a month to break off the holiday rust and we're starting to get into the spring racing season. For those that have been training it's time to find out where you are fitness wise, for those that are new and there are quite a lot of you, it's time to find out where you are at the very beginning of your training so that you have a good idea of where you are at at the beginning of your training and from now on how you're progressing. Go here for a description of this workout and more info, from this page you can search past time trials and enter your current ones. Should be a great time.

Many of you now having seen the new jackets that we were able to get from New Balance and have mentioned that you would like one now. So hating to have anyone left out I'll place another order. (they retail for $ 135.00, they're water proof and seam sealed, I was able to get the discount we got before the first of the year (I had to beg a little) so including shipping and tax we're able to get them for $65.00. There are men's and women's cuts and they come in Black or slate)I 'm setting up a something on paypal today so if you would like one please contact me before next Monday. I'm going to require that people pre-pay this time around as I still have several coats that haven't been paid for that I ordered in December. I would also prefer to have you pay online so that the money is all in one place. Just easier to keep track of.

One of the first big races of the spring is coming up on Sunday. The Love'm or Leave'm 5K. Entries are way up over last year so it's going to be big one and they are short on Volunteers please help out if you're available, you'll make the race a big success with your help. They asked me to try and round up 20 people and I have 10 so far but I'm only half way there. It being run at Greenlake it should be a very easy gig, so let me know if you can help.

More and more people are showing up on the roster who are not group members. I'll have to remove you unless you join. There are many people to keep track of already. If you're interested in joining but have questions please contact me so that I can get you started with training. I can make it harder to access by limiting to only members but I hate to hide stuff.