This was my first month of training for Comrades 2010. I am following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Spring training program. The target monthly mileage for the month was 151 KM, and mileage achieved was 119 KM. So, I was short by about 20% in this first month. The schedule called for 6 days of running a week, and I sort of struggled a bit to get that done, mostly getting 5 run days. This month also had a lot of travelling, which resulted in a few missed runs too. I tried to compensate for some of the missed runs by combining mileage for a couple of runs into one.
Summary: Monthly Mileage
Target: 151 KM
Achieved: 119 KM
Key intermediate targets achieved were a couple of 10K runs where target pace of sub 6:00/km and sub 5:45/km were comfortable achieved. Also, tempo runs in the range of 5:15/km to 5:10/km were also done. Just managed one 200m interval run (repeats) in about 50sec range.
Overall assessment: Pretty satisfied with the entire effort, a good first month. Getting in the groove of getting up early. More regularity now once those travels are done with. From fitness point of view, no injuries or concerns, so going good on that front too.
Next month: More of the same, June and July will just continue on the lines of May, with slightly increased mileage. More 10K target pace runs will be run, at slightly faster paces. Meeting the tempo run, interval and 10K target run pace will be an indication of how I am shaping up. It is less than a year to go for Comrades now (actually 360 days from today).