Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wonderful, Wacky, Week 7

So, in the creation and juggling of training schedules, which would be much easier if I, you know, just stole them, this week is a weird sort of harmonic convergence of events. So, I'm sort of looking at this whole week as a sort of reset for us, and for me, too.

We've gone through seven weeks of training. A few of you ran with me during the summer, and some of you had actually trained with me for weeks before training began. A few people are handling injuries and life obligations, but are still with us in spirit, and some will even be making a comeback. The rest of you have all been training hard through this first period, which sort of lays the foundation for the next phases of training.

So, think about where you've come from, celebrate where you are, and let's think about where you're going. This week ends up being perfect for that:

Tonight, Dick Beardsley gives us The Big Picture. I suppose you can ask him why you get the funny blister on the third toe of your left foot when the moon is full, but he's got a lot more to share than that, about running, and about running as it might relate to our lives.

Tomorrow night, we have the RDR Intervals, or the Running-Drinking Repeats. I was hesitant to do this one officially. Pub runs can be a lot of fun, or they can quickly degrade into stupidity. I know, I've done it both ways. Pub runs, I mean. Tonight is not about drinking, but about us having some fun.

Saturday is a weird nexus between the half marathon and marathon training schedules. I originally had the marathoners running 12, and the half marathoners having a recovery week with 4-5 miles. But, the marathoners really have a recovery due, and the half marathoners can go up for one more week. So, everyone's running eight together.

The route runs through East Austin, and Carmen has offered up her house as a starting and ending and breakfasting point for the run. I think we'll do an Evite for it later, but the deal is, she and Kellie and maybe some other volunteers (Jacala should, as much as she talks up Tennessee and all) will be cooking up a post-run spread. Be ready to bring five bucks to contribute to the expense - pretty cheap for lots of good-quality home-cookin'.

There ya go. It's a good week. Enjoy it.

3 comments:

Jack said...

Obviously, I can help. I thought it went without saying- Its just how we volunteers roll.

Um also, about the 8... Us halfers who ran the IBM race this weekend haven't even officially progressed to 7 yet. Don't you think 8 is a bit much?!

Rob said...

Hey! I think about these things. It's what I do. But it's a good question.

Saturday was indeed a hilly, fairly tough, if not actually "sinister", 7.

But you guys all ran the 10K pretty hard. 6.2 at 10K pace versus seven miles - not a lot of difference in terms of effort. Granted, you're talking about spending a bit more time (10-12 minutes for most of you) to cover another mile at easy pace, but the bottom line is, this eight mile run is relatively easy. You'll be fine.

Sprezzatist said...

See everyone tonight. Admittedly, I'm relieved about the 8. It's such a great round number.