A Plan is Hatched

Wednesday’s Run (10/20/10)

So, first things first.  In cast you didn’t know, peanut butter toast is an excellent way to bribe your butt out the door for a weeknight run.  I had a slice of Ezekiel bread (which I adore for its unwillingness to apologize for being whole grain and dripping with seeds), slathered quite generously with Whole Foods peanut butter, which I also love and miss terribly whenever I run out.  Whole Foods, please set up shop in College Station!  I will single-handedly keep you in business!

On Wednesday night, I decided to mix things up and headed off in a different direction for a 20-minute run.  The first 5 minutes were rather challenging, as though my legs were remembering how to run.  I’ve been feeling a little stiff this week, but if stiffness is not accompanied by soreness, then I don’t worry about it.  I figure that stiffness will melt away once I’ve been running for 5-10 minutes.

Once I was warmed up and moving at a nice pace, I found myself running toward a little park in town with a nice bouncy running path.  I did two laps on the path and enjoyed watching the soccer players having their after-game chats and gratuitous nakedness in the form of shirts missing or folded up and off their abdomens.  To be fair, it was a warm night and they were probably just trying to cool off, but still: hi there!

As I left the park, I craned my neck to see what the wooden sign said.  It told me that one lap equals 0.33 miles, which has given me an idea about how to do some speedwork in a park that I love.  I’d like to get some practice running laps at a pace faster than 9:00 miles.  I could use the park’s running path to practice running at 8:30 or 8:00 per mile, just to get a feel for that pace in an outdoor setting.  Truth be told, I always loved/hated track work-outs during cross-country practices.  It’s fun to run faster, to see what your limits are and then to break those limits.  Now the question is this: when and how do I fit speed work-outs into my half-marathon plan?  Also, what exactly is my half-marathon plan?  I’ll try to answer the second question in a future post, but I remain thoughtfully stumped about how best to gradually increase mileage and do some speedwork without risking injury.