Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Hal Higdon's 10k Plan - Started!

Well I started my 'official' racing plan yesterday.  I'm looking forward to using a plan over the next few weeks - I can use a little structure in my training right now.  Even though the plan calls for some days off, I'm electing to use the off days as easy, short runs to add a little to my overall weekly mileage.

Yesterday I got in about 5 miles total which I thought was good because of the massive amounts of rain that fell for the most part of the day.  Around 5 pm the skies cleared and I was lucky enough to get in a run after Cade fell asleep around 9 pm.  It wasn't that cold so I didn't have to bundle up too much but I did wear my sleeves.  Pace wise I kept it pretty slow since I've put in some difficult runs last week.  My pace was actually a 9:35 per mile so it was about :10 seconds faster per mile than I had planned, but I'm ok with that.  I have to keep showing improvement right?  Actually I went and looked at my training log and noticied and the 9:35 pace on this course actually 'beats' a race time I had last January.  So I have to be pleased right?

We're still supposed to get rain throughout the week so I'm not sure what my runs are going to look like over this time.  Today I'm supposed to do another 3 miles easy - so I'm pretty sure I can squeeze this in sometime later today.  I may have to get wet but that won't be too bad.  I'm just going to play it by ear.

My streak is now 19 days which is my personal best.  I really would like to finish the month without taking a day off.  And actually I'm starting to eye going another 60 days from today.  Why 60 more days?  Well my 10k race is 60 days from today so I think that would be a good goal.  Physically I feel pretty good.  Last nigt's run went better than I expected, with just a little soreness overall nothing too bad.  Stretching this out another 60 days may be good for me mentally.  What I'm worried about is the interval training that starts nexrt week - how will I respond to that?  I'm not sure since I haven't done any of this kind of training since college.

A final note: Beth purchased P90x last night, she's wanted this program since before Thanksgiving.  I'm sure its a good program, but I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to do it.  Still Beth and I talked and we're going to try to do this together.  I think I'm going to take before, during and after picture and I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.

Keep Steppin'
Bob

5 comments:

Lisa said...

I followed the Higdon intermediate plan for my 2nd 10k, minus the speedwork, and I was able to shave 2 minutes off my time in less than 4 weeks. Imagine what I could have done if I did the speedwork. Good luck. It's a great plan.

Bob Hazen said...

Thanks for the feedback - I haven't used Hal's plans before so it will be interesting to see my progress. If I could shave 2 mins off my overall time I'd be very pleased. Next Saturday is my 10k TT so I'll have a starting point - I'm guessing I'll finish that around 1:02 so a 2 min improvement is exactly what I'm looking for. :)

Running Through Life said...

I'm a fan of Hal Higdon also. I am currently using him to train for my first marathon.

Good luck with training and I am interested to see how you progress with the P90x.

teacherwoman said...

Love Higdon!

Good luck!

The Boring Runner said...

I've used higdon for ALL of my marathons except for this last one which I basically 'winged it'.

I've heard P90X is pretty intense. I'll be interested to see the before/after.