Longer, slower and looking ahead

Snow is still blanketing my running trail, but I decided to put in a few more miles than yesterday's 6 miles. So I did a total of 8 miles or 13K in about 1:09. Up to 18 miles for the week and I plan to get a long run in this weekend.

During my run, I was thinking of my schedule over the next few months and I know I definitely want to get the mileage up right now and maybe fit in more quality work. Realistically, I don't think I'm going to do many LT, intervals or strideouts until mid-February, although I may try a 3-mile tempo run on Saturday in DC. The ground will be clear and it'll be warmer so it'll be ideal.

My first race of the season comes in mid-March, a 5K, so it'd be good to get some speed sessions down in my long-term quest to get close to 20 minutes.

The big early race is on March 30, the Around the Bay 30K, which is kind of an A-minus race. It's a huge event and I've never done the distance in race conditions so I'm very excited and a little daunted by the distance: harder than a half marathon, but the distance is just about when you hit the Wall, so it's a great test of fitness and pacing. That day actually falls on one of my 20 mile training runs but i'll be running it at least at a marathon race pace. Put simply, it'll be a fantastic way to get right up to the Wall in training (and with thousands of training partners!).

One huge bonus of the Around the Bay is that it's really hilly in the last half, which should be interesting prep for the hills I hear we'll be hitting at the Flying Pig Marathon in May. I ran part of the last half of ATB over the holidays with R (her family homestead is around the 20K mark) and two of our friends who are training for the race. The hills are monsters in places.