Friday, May 30, 2008

Short Intervals and one more long training run

Last night, I did a very easy 4 miler, as planned. This morning, I did a 5 mile run with 6 x 1 minute at about 6:30 pace for each short interval. It was a beautiful sunny, but cool, morning, and I really enjoyed the run.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting a group of runners to run 24 miles of the Vermont 100 course. There is one aid station that runners hit at miles 46 and 70, so we are going to run the loop that starts and ends at that aid station. It's supposed to rain on us, but it's been a very dry spring here in Vermont, and we need the rain. Some of the runners may continue to the 77 mile aid station location. If they do that, I'm going to serve as a shuttle driver for them. No more 30+ mile runs for me.

Tomorrow's run will be my last long run before Western States. It will be my sixth run of 20 or more miles in May, and it's time for me to start backing off my training volume. Yes, I know that some runners would only taper for two weeks or maybe three. My normal taper would be three weeks, but my recent long run volume has been high enough that I want to be a bit more conservative about tapering.

I will continue to do interval work, tempo work, and strength training, but my running volume will drop to about 40 miles for next week, and probably 30-35 miles for the two following weeks. Next weekend, I'll do a 2-3 hour trail run, at an easy effort, but I doubt I'll go longer than 15 miles.

I'm off to visit my chiropractor in a little bit. I'll see him today and then one more time before I leave for CA. He has done a lot to help keep me together through all of my training the past few months.

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