When I was looking at the "near miss" in Philadelphia a little closer and the inevitable disaster in Frederick I pondered over and over what I had done differently or what I could change about my training. Sure, the course in Frederick was difficult and definitely had an effect on my time, but there had to be more to it.
When I looked back I realized how emphatic I was with strengthening my core muscle group leading up to Philadelphia. In fact, I was reading an article on core-work in Runner's World and recalled a statement I made to Becky right after my near miss in Philly. I told her that I felt that my core work was instrumental in that run. So as a result I began my strength regimen again this week with special focus on the core group to make an attempt to get back to where I was last November. It's only been a week but so far so good. I am building up to a full workout focusing on the core and have gotten more consistent with strength training overall.
In another two weeks I'll head out to the ice rink to begin skating again as hockey season is less than 8 weeks away. That should also help as I head toward #6 in Richmond. As I run, like today in the upper 80 temperatures, I focus not so much on Richmond as I do with maintaining consistency and injury free. In addition, I am stringing together as many BQ runs as I can muster. In order to run fast, you need to train fast. This goes against the grain of most training experts advice, but since I often can run BQ times with little difficulty I'm simply extending the length of time that I'm maintaining that pace.
In that light, today was my fifth consecutive BQ run. Two of them have been done on either tired legs and/or in oppressive heat. It's something to build upon. That, and my core.
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