I’m now two weeks into my new training program and things are going pretty well. I’ve had some really good workouts but I’ve also had some tough workouts. One thing I will say about this training program is that it requires a lot of fast running! Having both a speedwork and a tempo run session each week doesn’t make for a lot of easy days. It seems that once I get through Thursday’s run my legs are completely shot!

I thought that it would be interesting to compare the above two training tables with the last time I used this program in 2007 (see week 1 and week 2). I definitely came into training in 2007 with a better base (I was coming off a PB at the Victoria Half) but generally I’d say I’m doing pretty well in comparison. My week 1 tempo run was slow but I think that was because it was my first tempo run in at least 6 weeks and I made the mistake of listening to podcasts on my iPod which detracted from the focus I need to run fast. My long run paces are intentionally slower this time around too but I was pleased that I was still able to pull off the last three miles of week 2′s race-simulation long run.

I’m actually having a lot of fun with the speedwork sessions. Because I only have to do the intervals at half marathon goal pace they don’t seem too bad. Actually I’ve been running them too quickly. The recovery time is much less than I would normally take though so I think that’s where the challenge lies. In any case, it’s a nice change from the mile repeats that I usually do.

Despite all this running and decent training times I definitely do not feel 100% in shape. Of course it doesn’t help that it’s cold (for Seattle) and dark in the mornings so it’s easy to feel sluggish. I swear one morning last week I went on a run and it was no lighter when I finished than when I started! I have a 5K race coming up in a few weeks which I’m going to run as a hard tempo run and use as a gauge of my fitness. I’d like to finish in <25:00 but we’ll see how it goes!

Tomorrow I start ten weeks of training for the Mercer Island Half Marathon. I’ve been meaning to do this race for a few years but this is the first year that I could guarantee in advance that I’d be in Seattle that weekend. I’ve decided to us the Ryan Hall Half Marathon Training Program featured in Runner’s World. I previously used the first five weeks of this program in training for the 2007 Fall Classic half marathon where I set my current personal best of 1:52:00.

Setting a new half marathon personal best is one of my goals of 2009. Actually what I’d really like to do is beat 1:50:00. I’m not sure that Mercer Island is the place to make that happen though. The course is rather hilly and I’m not coming into training with the greatest base. I’ve been running pretty consistently for the past three weeks (about 20 miles per week) but I haven’t done any speed work or tempo runs since before the marathon in November. We’ll see how it goes!