The friendly trails and oh god maybe I should start real training

The last two running days have been heaven in Toronto. Temperatures hovering above zero, a few moments of sunshine. I swear everyone was in a good mood on the waterfront trail -- dozens of runners I`ve passed over the last few days seemed to be smiling. I routinely do the runner`s head nod or wave but everyone was returning that today. Give us a respite from winter and runners will take full advantage.



Trust me, despite the dreary looking picture, it is acually nice out. Also bumped into a few friends. Saw Fran who was in the middle of his 15 miler and we chatted about training, I noted I had barely done any quality work at all, while he reminded me we were 12 weeks away from Boston. Yesterday, saw Jelly and her cousin on the trails, they`re ramping up for the 30K Around the Bay that`s in two months.

Warning: Geek out numbers part begins

I have been doing a lot of base mileage at an easy pace over the past few months. I decided to figure out what the hell that meant so I looked back at my SportTracks software to track the last 17 months and my average pace.

Last January shows that I`m entirely comfortable going with an easy pace. This month so far, I am at about a 5:16 kilometre pace, while last January, I did even slower paces. You see months where I have done a goal marathon (bolded) is usually among the fastest, while the three months leading up to the marathon I tend to up the pace.

	Month	Average mile pace	Average km pace
	August, 2008	8:03:00	5:00:00
	September	7:55:00	4:55:01
	October	8:26:00	5:14:17
	November	8:14:00	5:06:49
	December	8:44:00	5:25:27
	January, 2009	9:09:00	5:40:59
	February	8:20:00	5:10:33
	March	8:06:00	5:01:51
	April	8:05:00	5:01:14
	May	8:04:00	5:00:37
	June	8:08:00	5:03:06
	July	8:10:00	5:04:20
	August	8:17:00	5:08:41
	September	8:06:00	5:01:51
	October	7:59:00	4:57:30
	November	8:18:00	5:09:19
	December	8:24:00	5:13:02
	January, 2010	8:29:00	5:16:08

A note about average pace: It includes tempo runs that I`ll do at 4:20 kilometres (7 and change minute ish miles, marathon pace runs at 4:35ish Ks (7:25ish miles), daily fast paces of around 5 minute kilometres (8 minute miles) and a long run. Recovery runs, very much needed, slows down the average pace. I`ve always known that if I am fit, I can do a 15 - 20 miler at around 5:00 to 5:10 pace (or 8 minute miles and a bit slower), depending on the day and weather.

Because I have an April marathon this year, my February and March should have be doing closer to 5:00 to 5:05 kilometres. In short, I think the speed work, pace runs have to start as of next week.

Now the real work begins.

Weekly mileage: 42 miles
Year to date: 134 miles