Back on the road

Well, I was not able to run the River Bank 25K. However, I did manage to come back and run the Soldier Field 10. I finished about two and a half minutes slower than last year, but I'm happy to have been able to run it at all.

Even better, I remain uninjured. I had Coach Leach look at my gait a month or two ago, and the things he told me to change about my form (make sure my feet strike underneath me, not in front of me, and work on bending my knees more) seem to be keeping me from doing any debilitating harm to my shins. While they are still touchy and don't feel completely normal, I haven't had any major pain while I was running or walking in several weeks. And I've been running roughly 20 miles a week.

So, with Soldier Field successfully behind me, it's time to turn my attention to the marathon. I'm two weeks in to a 20-week training plan. I took one from coolrunning.com and altered it to suit me. It had me running 5 days a week, and I reduced it to 4 but added in two days of biking. Each week, on either Monday or Tuesday, and either Thursday or Friday (depending on the weather), I'll be riding my bike to work and back. On the other two of those four days, I'll be doing training runs. Wednesday I'll do speed work with the racing team. Saturday will be my long run day. And Sunday will be the glorious day of rest.

This week is going to be a bit off because I'll be traveling on Saturday and Sunday, but here's my hope of what will go down...
Monday/Tuesday: bike/5 miles
Wednesday: speed work (the plan says 4-mile Fartlek, so I'll shoot for that total distance when I decide the number of reps of whatever we are doing)
Thursday: bike
Friday: 8 miles
Saturday/Sunday: 3 miles/off

I have completely lost track of the miles on my shoes, unfortunately. Maybe I'll try to formulate an educated guess some time before next week.

Here's to remaining injury free for the next 18 weeks and beyond!