Welcome Murali! We have really enjoyed running with you, Murali, and we are happy to "guide" you to achieving your goals! As your personal coaches, we make every effort to meet your individual needs to facilitate your achievement of your goal of 3:20-3:30 at California International Marathon. Your goal for Cal sounds achievable, so that's a great start! I would like to suggest that the training plans we provide for you are meant to assist you to reach your goals and build upon your current fitness. They are intended to be followed as closely as possible for the appropriate build up to take place and decrease risk of injury for your ultimate goal. Although, we believe that hard work is the key to success, rest and active rest (slow days) are also just as important. Therefore, it is important for you to communicate with us any concerns you may have regarding a workout; if you are unable to complete a scheduled training day as written; if you are experiencing nagging aches/pains/injuries; delayed recovery, or staleness; or if you have an unusual lack of motivation or drive; or work/family/life changes that may affect your training & training schedule.
A training log is a great way to keep track of your progress over a period of time. Analyzing periods of good days and bad days can form the basis of future success in racing and training. The log acts as your history book, telling you where you went wrong and where you went right. By analyzing the history of your running it is possible to explain your ups and downs and learn from those experiences. What you write in your training log is data for future training schedules. If you do not currently use a training journal, may we suggest this blog as your journal which in turn serves as a communication tool for your coaches to view how your training is progressing.
Intermittently, we will view this training journal and may make necessary changes to your monthly training schedule based on your discussion with us and/or your continuum of journal entries. Logs are entirely optional on your part, but logging does tend to "keep you on track" to reaching your goals and correct negative training patterns for future goals.
Our understanding is that your primary desire is to improve your fitness for a bike tour at the end of September while maintaining running fitness. Then transitioning your primary focus to training for the California International Marathon on December 7th. You have run a 3:38:46 at Chicago in 2006 and your goal is to run a 3:20-3:30 marathon at Cal and then run Boston in April of 2009.
We sincerely thank you for supporting our vision to promote racing, running, and walking in our community by keeping TEAM APEX up and "running" and by putting your best foot forward, striving toward your personal goals. We truly enjoy coaching and getting to know each of our runners. We aim to make ourselves available always and aspire to offer highly personalized coaching…. while making it fun!
If you ever have any questions or concerns, we encourage regular communication via email or call us at 949-3306.
Stay hungry Murali!
Monica, Mike, & Dave
monica@teamapexrunningandwalking.commike@teamapexrunningandwalking.comdave@teamapexrunningandwalking.com
