Month End April 2009

Well I kind of puttered out again at the end of this month. I must have an mental aversion in reaching 100 mines in a month. 97.5 was my miles logged.... A PB (but I didn't break the mythical 100 like I was hoping to.) After Friday came and went I was in a funk - mentally I didn't want to run because I knew I missed that 100 mile goal again. Isn't it funny how you 'play' mind games with yourself without really realizing it?

Still this past month was very good to me. I hit several PB (See the sidebar) and overall felt really strong physically and mentally up until the final days of the month. I've taken three days off now and feel ready to start this month. The 27th I'm planning to run my first official race of the year so I have about 3 weeks of hard training to put in - then I'll scale it back a little just so I'm sure my legs are fresh before the race. I'm not concerned about my conditioning, and I fully expect to set a PB at this race.

Goal wise, short term this month It's pretty thin. I want to hit 77 miles for the month and run a sub 30 min 5k in my race. I'm not going to 'tweak' either of these because I set them about 6 months ago and (hopefully) I'll accomplish both and I can look back over the past 6 months and feel good about my progress. Long term - I'm starting to look at late 2009 and early 2010. Pace wise I'm hoping to be in the mid to high 8 min mile pace for a 5k distance at that point. If I can do that I'll start planning my first half mary at that point. Mileage wise - I'm thinking I top out at around 130-140 miles per month. Beyond that I really don't have much more time in the day. I see some early runs on the weekends - I'll have to give up my 'sleeping in time.'

Keep Steppin'
Bob