A Running Update

Since life has been all about travel and baby lately, I figured I might as well provide an update to the folks that hopefully are still following along.  I do plan to get back into some regular posts around here.  Just gotta get them down and out of my head!

And being that its Friday, nobody wants to read the story of my life, so I'll condense everything into bullets.  Everyone likes bullets, right?

• My training lately has been all about aiming for consistency.  I've been logging right around 40-45 miles a week, with 1-2 quality sessions.  Primarily, I've been in base training since I don't have any specific races on the horizon, so no reason to step it up.  
• As I've always stated, base training doesn't mean simply easy miles.  To me, its more about race specificity.  The further one is away from a race, the less specific the training is for that race.  But I also believe that one must continue to include some speedwork.  So I'm really doing one of two things: running slow or running fast.  No marathon paced middle ground stuff.  But running fast doesn't have to mean running track workouts though.  It can simply be strides at the end of any easy run or pickups throughout a longer run, which is how I've been incorporating it into my week.  
• However, I am trying to figure out what I would like to do once Fall hits.  I would like to run at least a 5k and a 10k.  At the beginning of the year, I set 2 goals - break 19 in the 5k and 40 in the 10k.  I crushed my 5k goal by wining a local 5k back in May and running 18:34.  And with Baby Z coming shortly after, I didn't really have a chance to shoot for the 10k goal.
• In the process of the early days of Baby Z, we had to take some shortcuts in order to eat when we could and sleep when we could.  As a result, I packed on a few and have been working to shed that post baby weight.  With extra weight costing 1-2s/mile, my paces have slowed pretty much on par with that metric.  Until I get closer to pre-baby (PB...mmmm...peanut butter) weight, I don't think I will be capable of  meeting that goal.  So far since tightening up my diet and sleeping more, I've been able to drop 2 lbs in the last 2 weeks, with probably 5 more lbs to go.  That would get me back to my PB weight, but of course that was still a couple of lbs above my true racing weight.  So I have some work to do.
• While I know I can run fast at whatever weight I am at, it really is more of a mental thing.  I don't race unless I am mentally ready to give it my all, so if I am not mentally fit, my race will reflect it.  Just gotta keep chipping away and being consistent and I'll get there.  I'm already noticing the results of just those few lbs.
• This week is looking like it will be my highest mileage since Z was born at somewhere just north of 50 miles.  I started off the week strong, but with a dreaded tempo run scheduled that got pushed off a day, that slightly set that goal back.  I should still be close after my long run tomorrow and Sunday though.  The good news is that my body feels perfect and I am really staying on top of the core and mobility work to ensure things hold up.  I think this one is all just in my head :)

So that's all I've got for now!  Have a great weekend full of workouts and runner's highs!