Friday, January 14, 2011

By The Numbers

Last night I did a 15 minute tempo* run on the treadmill.  1.53 miles, overall pace 9:49.  I'm still a far cry from the 8:59 goal race pace I set, but I still have almost 4 months to get there so no worries.  And yet, it got me thinking about the numbers.

In May 2009 I ran my first half marathon in a respectable 1:58:59.  I had set 3 goals for myself:

  1. Finish.  Period.
  2. Finish faster than 2:30
  3. Finish faster than 2:00 (in a dream world)
Somehow all the stars aligned that day and it was one of those perfect runs.  I met my dream world goal and felt on top of the world.

Fast forward to May 2010 when I ran my second half marathon.  I was fighting an injury and trained far less than the year before.  I finished in 2:29:something.  Which might have been okay if it was a respectable performance, but instead I had to hobble/walk/run the last 5 miles.

Being the numbers person that I am, I got to thinking.  How many miles was I running while training for my stellar first half...how many was I running while training for my dreary second half?  Where should that put my numbers for this year's third half, where I would love to PR?  Let's take a look, shall we?

20092010
January59.76.1
February48.321.5
March67.017.0
April77.152.5
May33.135.1
June34.50.0
July26.00.0
August31.716.9
September28.533.3
October20.222.7
November8.616.4
December1.033.0


Clearly I had a far better mileage base going into the race in 2009 than I did in 2010.  I know there was an injury that slowed me down in November and December and into January.  Then I had to build back up from there.  The thing is, I had knee and hip trouble in '09 as well but I didn't let it slow me down.  Was I running smarter in 2010...or wimpier?  Hard to know the answer.  What I do know is that to have a race that rivals 2009, I'm going to have to put in more impressive mileage than I did in 2010. 

So far in January I have put in 17.5 miles.  I still have about 2 weeks to go, including a long run tomorrow that should get me about 6 miles.  Projecting that out, I can expect at least a 45 mile month.  Looking at the numbers, that may not be good enough.  One thing I am certain of is that it's time to get the mileage up.


*I use the term tempo very loosely.

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