At the beginning of this year, I would not have predicted I would have had such a great year of growth. I made plans, I stuck to plans, I achieved more than I hoped I would. Before I get to 2014 stuff, here is the quick recap of December.
Goals for the month included a) resume/maintain base mileage of around 40 miles per week b) more hills c) more speed. I think I've done a great job on 2 of the 3 (weekly base and hills) and a decent job with speed work, thanks to starting up indoor track work at the Reggie Lewis track.
My focus has been more on weekly elevation totals, thanks to two new regular runs. The first is a weekly session of hill repeats near my house. Second, I've been out in the blue hills every weekend this month for either trail running, or using that area as a long destination run.
Here are the weekly elevation results from Strava showing the effort of the last 4 weeks.
I really love the long run out through Milton, which you can see below.
The first 5 miles are a slow and steady climb (plenty of rolling hills on the way) up to the State Police Barrack trail head, which follows a steep hill with a mile and half of trail running before I hit the summit road for the actual Blue Hill. From there, it's about a 8/10 of a mile on a sharp incline, reaching the summit at 620 feet. The rest of the run is straight downhill and then I do my best to maintain a pace close to 7:30 for the final (very flat) 5 miles of the run. My plan would be to treat this run like Steve Way's Purbeck run, and create extensions (or double summit road climbs) on the flats where I'll do either a steady run or maybe some interval work. Conditions permitting, I also hope to head out to the Blue Hills once every 2 or 3 weeks for training that consists solely of trail running.
December Miles: 170
Elevation: 7,200 ft (Note: Strava says 6,800, but they always screw me, especially on my PJP tempo run)
Rest Days: 7
Pace: 8:08
The 170 miles was as planned, and up considerably from the 120 mile average that I put in between Boston and the Philly training.
When looking at the trailing 12 months, I'm up to 1,841 miles. So now I'm starting to comp months that where fairly high mileage, so the month-over-month increases are back down under 10% for the last two months.
So, thanks to healthy legs and fantastic weather, I've been able to still get out and put my work in. Here are some of my favorite runs from the month:
- (FHR) Ponkapaug to Blue Hill summit
- (FHR) Progression w/ 3 miles at 7:30 pace, 3 miles at 7 min pace, 3 miles at 6:30 pace.
- Solo 2x3 miles tempo run in PJP
- Solo Xmas day run including my now regular 8xEllison hill reps
- Solo Blue Hill destination long run
So, I'm excited and pleased that everything went nearly exactly as I drew it up coming out of the Philly marathon. My only regret is that a) I did not keep up with my core this month and b) my eating discipline over the last few weeks has been terrible. The first few weeks of the month I was holding my weight down under 174, but the last two weeks it has been back up to 179...and this week in Wisconsin is doing me no favors!
January will be a get-back-to-real-work month for me, especially considering the 2015 goals I have outlined for myself...
