Run Less, Run Faster

So in my attempt to get off to a running start with the blog, I did just that except that it looks like I jumped over a few hurdles too. Turns out I haven’t really explained my current running plan and some of you are confused.  Thanks to Kepa (who has an awesome blog, btw, and an awesome love story going on with Mary, who’s blog is also awesome) for asking what are 400s on my post yesterday, I will try to explain what I’m doing with regards to training.

On a whim, I asked my sister for this book for Christmas:

I had seen that Matt used the book to qualify for Boston! I was super impressed by that feat alone, but I also was intrigued with the idea of running fewer times each week. As we all know (er….should know…may know?) I love triathlons. I also have a love affair with running half-marathons (which I would like to transform into a love of marathons). Unfortunately, sometimes I convince myself that the two cannot co-exist. Half-marathons require running four to five times a week. How am I supposed to fit, not one, but two other sports in, and more than twice a week (I thought I needed to bike three times a week but I think I have revised that idea)?

The answer it turns out was run less but run more efficiently. The workouts in Run Less, Run Faster are hard! They are also well-defined. Each week  you have three running workouts: an interval, a tempo, and a long/easy run. There are tables in the book that use your most recent 5k time (or other race times that you can equate to a 5k time) to determine the speeds of your workouts.

My very first workout of my half marathon training was 12 x 400s. What’s a 12 x 400 you ask? It’s 12 intervals of 400 meters (or .25 miles for those out there that are less metrically inclined, like say all of America). This particular workout had me resting for 90 seconds between intervals (I either jog or walk depending on how bad I’m huffing and puffing at the end of the lap).

I was supposed to run those 400s in 2:05 minutes (or at 7.2 mph on the treadmill). This is one reason I love treadmills. I don’t know that I could maintain a pace like this without the belt being set to a number. I will certainly try some of these interval workouts on the track once winter goes away but for now the treadmill works just fine for me.

I’ve only done this plan for 4 workouts now (today’s workout was the start of week 2). I struggled with the pace I was supposed to maintain for my long run on Saturday (8 miles at 10:24 was the plan – I did them at 10:36), but I think my problem there was that I went out to fast.  However, I have really enjoyed the variety of workouts even in this short amount of time. The intervals I did today were vastly different than last week in a good, challenging way.

I have a feeling this book and I are going to go far, and hopefully fast!!

In other news: no sweets today (w00t) and I consumed 1385 calories! I plan to log my calories every day here but I don’t think I’ll be using a calorie counting program. Although I like my Daily Plate/Livestrong one, it’s difficult with recipes that I make at home (like my clam chowder, which was my lunch today, and which had the calorie information with the recipe) and it’s easier for me to do it by hand since I know how many calories a lot of the things I eat have.