Jeff is a formidable runner who has actually given up triathlon to focus on running. I always enjoy chatting with fellow distance enthusiasts, and we talked about routes around town we like (and don't), Jeff's current goals (which involve breaking the sound barrier, I think), and my recent half-marathon. Jeff kept interrupting to ask who my coach was until finally it occurred to me that he was hinting at something. It turns out that Jeff, who is an admirably geeky runner, loves nothing more than making up training plans for people. In fact, in his free time he operates a small coaching company called Run1Fast for this very purpose. If I were ever interested, he told me, he'd be happy to make a training plan for me. (And he'd happily do one for anyone else, by the way, so please visit his site or ask me for his contact information if you're interested in working with him. He works with runners of all levels, from total beginners to seasoned cheetahs. If you're stuck on a treadmill, Jeff is also starting a series of videos to guide you through your workout and make it more tolerable.)
I thought the matter over for a long time. On the one hand, I'm in the prime of my running career in terms of age. Unlike participants in most sports, endurance athletes tend to run their best races in their 30s and even later, so signs were certainly pointing to "yes" on that front. Additionally, my work schedule is about as flexible as it's ever likely to get, so this is an excellent time to devote plenty of daylight hours to running.
On the other hand, I was squeamish about the commitment. I've been enjoying cross country skiing, snowshoeing, trips to the climbing gym, etc., and much of that would probably go out the window if I took on this challenge because I'd be too tired from training (or reluctant to wear myself out for an upcoming training day) to spend much time doing anything else.
At the end of the day, however, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I have the rest of my life to enjoy a variety of activities, after all, and I figured that I'd always wonder how fast I could have been if I'd invested effort and time into it.
I received my 12-week training plan today. The overall timeline involves a May 1st half-marathon as a tune-up race, then two more serious races afterward, one in early fall and one in either late fall or early winter. Here is a snippet of my plan, which is quite complex and involves running different distances at different paces and some cross training days as well.
Jeff is a pretty hands-off "coach" (which explains his absurdly reasonable rates), so although we will probably chat about how things are going when we see each other socially, he won't be following my progress. Instead, I'm supposed to use color-coded highlighting after I complete each workout to record how it went: green means it felt easy, yellow means it was pretty tiring, and red means I was unable to finish. Since I have two more races after my first one of the season, keeping records of this kind will help both of us use spring as a guide for deciding how to plan for the fall and winter.
I've only just started to digest all of this, but I can already tell that there are some gimme workouts and some that may be out of reach. It's all a little intimidating, but I'm excited to get going and see how fast I can be!
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