Mud squishes underfoot and the aroma of musky earth hangs in the morning fog. My senses are overloaded, calming me as I find my peaceful state that I only find in the wild. I'm away from all the distractions of traffic, crosswalks, and barking dogs. For just a short period of time, the chaos of modern society and all its expectations, trappings, and temptations disappears.
It's trail running season again.
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| Headwaters Forest last Saturday |
While tapering for the marathon, my thoughts already drifted ahead to a summertime of running. Originally and probably for the third or fourth year in a row, I had plans to work on shorter distances like the 5K. When it comes to that short distance, I know I need practice in the form of several 5K races if I expect to do well. With just two club 5Ks the whole summer, I wasn't sure if the sacrifice was worth it. Sacrificing mountain running. Sacrificing long days on trails. I needed to try to do both.
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| Canyon Creek backpacking trip this week |
I've got a training plan set so once my legs are completely recovered from the marathon, I'll run two fast workouts a week and take a long day on trails. Everything in between is flexible based on my adventure plans and energy level. Road runs during trail season feel so fast and light, I might be surprised how the two compliment each other.
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| Headwaters Forest on Sunday |
Last weekend was my first official trail weekend. While I'm not running much speed work yet, I'm getting plenty of quality time outside while I meander forest trails and climb ridiculously steep hills. It feels right.
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| I can always find more willing friends to run on the trails vs. the roads. |
As for races, I've got three of them:
July 4: Arcata Marsh 5K. This one is a local trail run. It's non-technical and flat. Mileage will be a bit high here, but I'm going to race it as hard as I can and see how it goes.
July 17: Fortuna Rodeo 5K. This is the club's fastest 5K course. It's an out-and-back with just two turns. It falls in the perfect place during the taper for a fast time.
July 23: Siskiyou Outback 50K. I can't seem to get enough of southern Oregon these days so this was the logical choice. If the weather is favorable, I think the trail and track combo might set me up nicely for a PR and maybe sub-5:30 time.
Is it wise to target races at two ends of the distance spectrum? No idea, but I'm going to try. More pretty trails, here I come!
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| Grasshopper Peak course walk-through with Ranger Thomas on Tuesday. |
Has anyone had experience running PRs at shorter distances while training for longer ones? Am I foolish to think this might work?
Back when I was a more beginner runner, this seemed to happen a lot, but these days it's not so common. I guess we'll see how it goes! :)
5 comments:
As a runner who is just happy to finish any race I attempt, I can't give you any advice....but looks like you've been quite busy enjoying nature.
I just ran a 10K PR while training for longer runs. I was doing one 10K-specific speed session each week, while the rest of my training was focused on the longer distance (45K). I seemed to respond pretty well to that!
Excited to see beautiful pics from trail season :)
back when I was running much more and training hard for the marathon, I posted PRs in every single shorter distance. for me, it's mental - if I know I can run strong for 16 or 18 miles, it doesn't seem as daunting to run hard for much less distance. I bet you'll surprise yourself!
When I used to race, I felt that trail runs helped me run faster in road races. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it had something to do with being forced to run more slowly in the woods, which was hard to do on pavement training runs.I could go a lot farther and build up endurance.
Linda, Last week was full of outdoors time, even more than I'm used to getting.
Molly, Your success was what helped me decide to try both.
Bobbi, I hope so!
Mary, Trail runs are a lot hillier and harder too. Speed training in disguise, as they say.
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