This Week's Running...

Congratulations on braving the elements Saturday morning for a chilly, wet run!

Here’s our running schedule for this week…

Monday: This is the beginning of our first "stepback" week, where we cut mileage slightly to allow us to gather our energy for the next push upward in mileage in Week 4. Today is a cross-training day – Adventure Boot Camp or on your own. Make sure you work your leg muscles through walking lunges, squats, deadlifts, etc, to keep the spring in your running stride and your body’s shock absorbing system strong.

Tuesday: Run 4 miles at your easy pace as a recovery run. Make sure you stretch very well after the run – keep your joints and muscles working at full mobility.

Wednesday: Another cross-training day.

Thursday: We’re doing 6 miles at race pace. Race Pace is the pace you plan to run in the Pig. If you're training for a 4:00 marathon, your average pace per mile is 9:09. Pace runs are not only an important part of stretching our fitness level, but a great tool to develop your stride and cadence in knowing how fast you are going on race day.

Friday: Another cross-training day.

Saturday: Run 9 miles today at a comfortable pace. We don't want to run fast during our long runs. The only exception is once every three weeks, if you have some gas in your tank, you can finish a long run off at a fast tempo. Ingrid, Rob and I did this on Saturday. But you don’t want to do a 3/1 run more than once every 3 weeks. Most important is that you cover the distance and cover it with a reasonable level of comfort. There is a cumulative effect from all the miles we run in training that is often difficult to measure, but your fitness level will continue increasing. As mentioned above, this is a "stepback" week where we drop down in distance. This is done every third week on long runs to offer our bodies extra rest. Although today we run 9 miles, keep "16" in your mind, since we jump ahead to 16 miles next week.

Sunday: Rest! I will be flip-flopping my long run and rest day this weekend as I will be presenting at a seminar Saturday.

I’ll miss the fun we have on the long run!!

The full 18 week running schedule is here!

Your friend in fitness! Brian Calkins

HealthStyle Fitness, Inc. 4325 Red Bank Rd Cincinnati, OH 45227 513-407-4665, x-105 www.CincinnatiFitness.com