Weekly Training Wrap - 12/3 - 12/9

Running is such a mental sport. Or maybe I am just a mental case? After Leadville, I decided that I was not doing enough hard workouts and that my fitness level was slipping, even as my endurance was peaking. I was determined to do more long tempo (or marathon pace) workouts to increase my fitness. But now the time has come and I am struggling with the motivation to do the hard work. I love to run slow, particularly during this time of year where the days are short and the nights are long and cold. It is hard to find the motivation to get up early and push my heart rate. I have never felt better than I did after my Wednesday Maffetone workout. I literally felt like I hadn't run at all. After my hard run on Saturday, I was dragging all day.

Where is the happy medium? Well, I think I can do 80 - 90% of my miles within my easy limits to continue base building and endurance building. But I am committed to adding in at least one quality workout every 7 - 10 days. That workout won't always be a long tempo run. Sometimes I may do speed work, hill work, etc...

All in all, I am very satisfied with where I am at. I hope to continue increasing my miles gradually as I work toward the Old Pueblo 50 in March. But, I will not do it at the expense of core work and x-training.

I have updated my 2013 list of events and begun to trim the fat. I will likely have to trim it one last time to keep the strains on family life to a minimum. But this is a pretty solid list at this point. My season will be built around the Old Pueblo 50 and then the Leadville Silver Rush 50.

Day	Miles	Notes
Monday	Rest	P90x - X Stretch
Tuesday	6	Easy
Wednesday	9	Easy Maffetone (P90x - Plyo)
Thursday	5	Easy
Friday	Rest	Strength Training
Saturday	18	Long Tempo Run (MP+30sec)
Sunday	12	Easy Maffetone
Total	50	About 2900 vertical feet