There are only 7 weeks left to literally the biggest race of my life, the Atlanta Track Club's 2011 Peachtree Road Race 10K on July 4th. Sixty-thousand runners are expected in this year’s PRR. That’s a lot of folks! I’ve adjusted the focus of my training from triathlon specific swimming, cycling and running to be more running centric. My 20 week training plan for Ironman Florida scheduled for November 5th will start on June 19th. The PRR is just 2 weeks after that training starts.
Like many avid Atlanta runners, I’ve done my homework in preparation for this year's race. To give me the best opportunity to do well I’ve run several races trying to get the best wave start position. I think my preparation has worked. Last year I started in the “A” group behind the invited stars of the sport, the seeded runners, and behind the sub-seeded runners. This year I expect to start with the sub-seeded wave.
I recently read an article about the American marathon phenom, Ryan Hall. In that article, Hall’s coach recommended that he train for and enter 1 mile distance races. That’s considerably less than the 26.2 mile races he must be used to. The article stated that the coach’s reasoning was that it would improve Hall’s speed.
As race day approaches I plan to introduce more speed work into my training. Speed work is something I typically don’t do. I’ll have to make a conscious effort to change that. A part of that effort is to run some local 5K races. I’ve signed up for the Peachtree City Running Club All American 5K on May 28th and the Virginia-Highlands Summerfest 5K on June 4th.
I don't yet know the All American 5K course. An unofficial map of the Summerfest 5K course is below.
I’m hopeful that improving my 5K speed will also improve my 10K speed, and my marathon speed. Ultimately I want to improve the finish time in my next really big race in November, Ironman Florida.
