Training starts for Houston Marathon 2010!!!

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I must say that I had a great spring running season. I placed in my age group in the following races:

1) Run Wild Half-Marathon: 1st Age Group, 1:34:41
2) Bellaire Trolley Run: 2nd Age Group: 19:37
3) LP Run: 2nd Age Group: 4.93 miles in 33.33 minutes
4) Cinco De Mayo: 3rd Age Group: 21:11 (Ran after 5 days of donating blood)
5) Impact a Hero 5k: 3rd Age Group: 19:40
6) Deer-Park 5k: 1st Age Group: 20:21

My other notable performances during spring were:

Bayou City Classic 10k: 41:09 (PR)
Flying Owls 5K: 19:16 (PR)

I ran tracks from Feb-May and it gave me confidence to run fast as well as accompanying speed. I loved track workout and it is too bad that at Rice they dug up tracks to install new ones. What is the matter with Rice? They always dig up things.

Summer is almost over and we are all set to start our training for Houston Marathon.
I ran my first marathon this year in Houston in 3:38. Although, realistically I think I was in 3:30 shape :-) For 2010, I want to run a 3:10 so that I can qualify for Boston Marathon. If I consider various race time/pace calculators and my 5k/10k performances, I should be able to run 3:10 if I train properly.

My idea is to start my training conservatively by increasing mileage slowly in first 5-6 weeks. In first 5-6 weeks, I intend to run most of runs at easy pace. I got carried away in my Sunday long runs for last 2 weeks and ran them very fast. Running long run faster is counter productive and increases chances of injury. So, I have to be careful and run it deliberately slow next time.

I am not a big fan of high mileage training. First, because I am too lazy and second I always fear about getting hurt. For last 2-3 months my average weekly mileage was about ~25. I intend to increase it to 35-40 in next 5-6 weeks. Right now, I am thinking about a peak weekly mileage of 50 but I can revise it if I am convinced that I need more miles.

I plan to run 5 days a week: Monday, Wednesday-Friday and Sunday.
Monday: Recovery run after Sunday long run
Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run along Bayou and last 1.5 slow recovery run
Thursday: Easy Run
Friday: Easy warm up followed by some intervals (every other week)
Sunday: Long Slow run

After first phase of 5-6 weeks, I want to include hill workouts to strengthen ankle/quads so that I am ready for next phase of Marathon pace runs/Interval & Repetition training.

I have the following goals during the course of my training which are some sort of checks and bounds on my performance. If I meet most of them, then I may be in shape to run 3:10 else I need to downgrade my goal.

5K: 19:00 (By end of December) @6:08 min/mile
10K: 40:00 (By end of November) @6:27 min/mile
10 miles: 1:08:30 (Fall series) @6:51 min/mile
Half-Marathon: 1:30:00 (Fall series) @6:52 min/mile
25K: 1:50:00 (Fall series) @7:05 min/mile
30K: 2:13:00 (Fall series) @7:08 min/mile

I will update as Fall season unfolds. Keep running!!! :-)

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