A Word From The Endurance Coaches (Week 7 Update)

Hello NP Endurance Project Teammates!!!

WOW. What a surreal experience for our training run at Oscar Scherer State Park this past Saturday morning. We were able to experience a complete gamut of "conditions." We began in the quiet stillness of the morning, marveling at the beauty of the trails, colors of wildflowers, scent of lemongrass, rich greens of the native fauna, precocious scrub jays and the kind footing of Florida forrest. We finished, soaked in relentless rain, remnants of Fay, lightning flashing, thunder pealing, our feet slogging through ankle-deep puddles, drenched, exhilarated!

SPECIAL THANKS to Joan and Ed Morgan, who prepared a memorable breakfast of iron-skillet on the camp stove pancakes, turkey bacon, sausage, syrup, fruit and a variety of juices and hot coffee.

All right, a great training run completed on our way to preparing for the Oct. 11 Half Marathon. Here’s what’s ahead for the rest of the week. We want to be fresh, NOT over-trained or tired for this Saturday’s event, the John Z MDA Run/Walk for Jerry’s Kids. The race location is Olde World Restaurant. We want to be there at 6:30 a.m. or so -- race starts at 7:30. We advise the front-end time to complete registration, get race packets, get settled, warm-up, and so on. Upon completion of the race, we’ll be planning on doing the course at a slower pace than what we raced at. These post-race miles on the fatigued legs will help build our endurance for the 13.1 miles Half Marathon. (This will count as the "long run" day of the week.) To get from here (Wednesday) to Saturday, you may want to do only one more day of light running (4 miles no later than Thursday.) You’ll run hard this coming Saturday—better to come into Saturday more rested rather than over-trained.

Do some abdominal, lower-back, obliques and arms strength-training and some stretching for your legs. Come into Saturday morning rested up and ready. Remember your individual goals for this project—we still have your goal cards as a reminder. We all want to keep our sights set on accomplishing our goal for the Half-Marathon.

Your coaches, Jim, Bethany and Kim