by Natalie on September 25, 2009
This weekend I am going to be doing my first Olympic triathlon in Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia. It’s the Big Lick. It’s also going to be a big milestone marking the end of many months of training and what I think is safe to call a significant obsession with triathlon training.
Every week I have been mapping out runs, rides, swims, time to get to the pool, looking at my gear, reading blogs, tweets, websites, checking and re-checking the weather, all in an effort to know as much as possible and be as prepared as possible going into this triathlon.
On top of the triathlon training I have been working my way through marathon training for the Richmond Marathon. I’m currently at the end of week nine in a 16 week schedule and am looking forward to re-focusing my training on just running.
Somewhere in between all this training I have been working, attempting to give some semblance of order to my house, and maintain an inkling of a social life.
My life is no different, or busier, than anyone I know and I wouldn’t trade the opportunities, the training, or the racing for anything. At some point it is all about balance and though I have yet to figure that out, this is my life and I’ll take it!
by Natalie on September 14, 2009
At the Annapolis 10-Miler this year I was behind a couple girls with t-shirts that read on the back “Trained on LSD and Speed” and as a runner I thought that was cute and a clever play on those two words. It wasn’t until days after the race that I started to really consider how the blend of long slow runs and speedwork really are the core tenants of training. And then I realized it was time for me to evaluate if I had been training on LSD and speed.
I’m on week eight of Bart Yasso’s Runner’s World marathon training program as I train for the Richmond Marathon. His plan very clearly spells out Easy runs, Hills and Hill Repeats, Speedwork, LSD runs, and rest days. This is the last week of the hill work-outs and then we move on to mile repeats and a variety of other track work like the famous Yasso 800s. Up until this last week the LSD runs have been between 7 and 13 miles and I have to admit I was only doing LDs. In each of the long runs, I went out with the goal of maintaining my 9-minute, or faster, pace. Over the weekend I was working the gracie’s gear booth at the Nation’s Tri with Coach Gracie Updyke and we each had a 16-mile long run planned for Sunday, so we got to talking about long runs. [click to continue…]
