I've been listening to a ton of training podcasts and continuing to read a bunch of training books, and one of them recently struck me. It talked about 2-3 goal races a year. Uh... we've had 2-3 goal races just from April to June. :/ When we signed up for Grandma's Half, we had also planned to do the Brookings half, assuming one would be better weather than the other, and it would give us two good shots for a strong race day. And then 605 Running Co. announced their first ever spring half, and we just had to sign up for that too. And we had that Chicago half marathon fun run in January, and a bunch of little tune up races along the way. Uff da, I'm tired just typing all of this!
When I was first getting back into running again a few years ago, I had a blast doing the summer and fall 5k series put on by the city. They were a huge mental boost to see where my training was, and also a good excuse for me to run hard for 3 miles each week for speed work. In those early days, that speed work was around 9 minute pace, maybe faster, so it wasn't a big deal to recover from. Somewhere in the last 6 months I think I failed to take into account race recovery. I enjoyed racing on tired legs because I wasn't specifically tapering for my goal race, and being thrilled with the results.
I had originally planned to run the 5k tonight, as it's the only 5k of the June series that doesn't conflict with the half. And then I realized that this is my last big-ish week of training for this cycle, and it's more important that I get some strong miles in without overly taxing my legs for race day. So no 5k for me.
I'm glad I had this realization now instead of later in the year as the marathon gets closer. It's also helping me to see our 2019 race plan in a new light. I guess this is why people have coaches, huh? :)
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