With only one major race left, I thought I would take a look back at my training over 2007 and provide thoughts, insights, and other information from it for you. I trained for 3 major events this year, the Indy 500 Mini Marathon, Bears of the Blue River 10K, and Midsouth Half Marathon.

First up is the Mini-Marathon. I began 2007 having recovered from injuries sustained throughout the year in 2006. After going to the Runner’s Forum I was fitted with stability shoes (ASICS® Men’s GT 2120), which helped relieve some of the knee pain. Coming back from no running since September 2006 I took it nice and slow getting back into shape. I may have taken it a little too easy but I wanted to be sure my body would last for the whole season!

I spent a lot of time on the Elliptical machine and the bike during January. I modeled it similar to a training program slowly building time and varying the program to include hills, intervals, etc, using an easy hard easy schedule. I introduced running after about 2 weeks of training, starting with only a half mile on the treadmill, then hitting the elliptical again. By the end of February I was finally doing mostly running and hit a 17 mile week of easy running.

I had decided to use a Cool Running Half-Marathon training program. Because my mileage had been so low I opted for the Intermediate program instead of the advanced. It was designed for runners currently running 25-50 mile weeks or a goal time under 1:45. The twelve-week program focuses a lot on getting miles under your belt with one weekly speed session and one long run. The hardest week was a 40 miler in week 9.

Looking back through my schedule, I didn’t follow the training program at all. Since I was still cross-training when the program began, I was behind on my mileage the entire time. My mileage peaked at 35 in week 9, but my workouts didn’t really follow anything in the training program!

My training included a lot of rest time due to various pains and continued caution with my injuries. Only during six of the 12 weeks did I actually run 5 days out of the week. Speedwork was pretty non-existent but did include a couple of fartleks, one true speed session of 2 x 1/4, 2 x 1/2, and 1/8, a couple time running up hills hard at Mounds, and a few “races” at Shadyside. I also ran a DINO 15K race for training/tempo run/race!

Needless to say my race wasn’t spectacular! I ran a 1:41:53 half marathon time which was only 3 minutes off last year’s Mini time and 7 minutes off my 2005 half marathon PR. My splits were:

7:56 7:17 7:26 7:19 7:28 7:38 7:45 7:44 7:47 7:49 8:01 8:19 8:40 0:39 1:41:53

I went into the race with no expectations so was fairly pleased and appreciated having David Dehart to run with for pretty much most of the race.

Looking back, training more consistently would have helped a lot, but I do think I was able to compete longer for 2007 because I was cautious getting back into it and made sure my body was healed and didn’t push through the pain. I am content with the first part of my training and I think it laid a good foundation for later on this year!

Here is a graph from my training log at Running Ahead.

The four stars in a row are from the ARRC Shadyside pre-season races. This graph doesn’t include the elliptical or bike.

Yesterday’s Run

It was back in the mid-40’s for this easy 3 mile run at Mounds State Park. The trail was very wet with some puddles, but nothing major on the perimeter loop. I forgot my watch at home so I’m not sure of my time, but I took it nice and easy. I haven’t seen any deer for awhile, but I did see some of Anderson’s Finest as the APD SWAT Team was enjoying a run through the park!

Technorati tags: Training, Analysis, Half-marathon, Indy Mini, Training Analysis