The best laid plans...

The last two weeks have been a bit crazy. I was doing my last week of training for the Half before tapering and the runs were going well. It's been a cold, snowy year so far but runners will be out there no matter what. I had done a 13.5 mile run after the Krispy Kreme Challenge and knew I was ready for the race. I wanted to run the trails to practice on the trails but Pilot Mtn has been closed for the last few weeks due to snow/ice. Tapering went well this last week, although I wasn't used to running a lower mileage week and really had to fight the urge to go out for a few extra miles.

Then then email came.

Due to 6 inches of snow and ice on the trails, the Pilot Mtn Half has been postponed until (drum roll please ...) APRIL 10th! That's six weeks! Part of me was glad to have the extra training time, but I think a larger part of me was ready to run the race and get my first half done and over with. I worry about injury between now and then, but I've decided that this is the race I have trained for - the race that intrigued me enough to sign up for a half - and I'll hold out and wait for the new race date.

Thus, a whole new training plan has been unleashed. I had planned out my training for the Feb 20th race well and wanted to make sure that I feel as good on April 10th as I did on Feb 20th. Step 1 - print out calendars for the next three months. Step 2 - get out mechanical pencils and engineering erasers. Step 3 - plan, plan, plan. So I sat down and looked at the big picture, planning long run and then added in speed workouts and maintenance runs before totaling weekly distances and monthly distances. After erasing and rearranging many runs so that mileage slowly increases and harder workouts are well spaced. By now, I've really gotten a feel for the amount of effort different workouts take and how much I can run the following day. I'm feeling confident with the plan (which of course is subject to change). And most importantly, a new race day has been sketched into the plan - Saturday April 10th - until then...