RUN this town

From work

From: Kaye, Eric
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 1:56 PM
To:i , Jacqueline; , Katherine; , Emily T.; , Katherine; , Megan Eileen; , Sydney K.; , Michael
Subject: RE: Group run

Everyone:

Here is my time, as a savvy veteran, to weigh in, and tell you all to take a deep breath. I sense a bit of anxiety building up over the last 2 weeks. Today is January 20th. The Marathon is not until April 16th. You have so so so much time to train, stretch, recover from a bum knee, foam roll a sore IT band, lose a toe nail, run 18 miles, run 20 miles, run 20 miles again, and burn so many calories.

I’ve done all the dumb things and hurt myself plenty of times training for this marathon. Each time, and there have been many of these weeks, when I couldn’t run — or, didn’t feel prepared for the full distance — I cross-trained the hell out of each work out. The 10, 12, 14, or 16, miles you run tomorrow or Sunday morning, will have absolutely no impact on what you are going to go out and do on March 24th or April 16th.

What will impact those important runs, and hopefully not injure you, is when you decide to knock out a 40 mile week having never done more than 25 in any previous week. Each week, as long as you feel like you built on something, even if it is doing back to back weekends of 8 mile runs, you’ll keep getting better. I take a weekend off each winter and just do 3 - 4 miles when everyone else might have 14 - 16 miles on their schedule, because I feel the rest makes me better for the next week.

And by all means push it each week to the full distance that the team runs. This is not to scare you off that plan. I’m just providing some wisdom to tell you that what’s on Jack’s schedule shouldn’t dictate what is on your schedule.

Be smart tomorrow morning if it is snowing!