Email #2 from Don Garber

For those of you who have just joined in the last week or so, I send out a weekly message to the entire training team. Some administrative. Some motivational. Some about training. Several Items for you this week

Which Schedule Do You Run:
I have had multiple inquiries from people who are on the fence between the Novice Schedule and the Intermediate Schedule. Which Schedule should they run? There are several levels in answering this question.

• First, I usually recommend that if you are close to being able to trying the intermediate schedule, to give it a try for a couple of weeks. My logic here is that you can always drop back to the Novice Schedule if the Intermediate is too taxing, but it is almost impossible to jump from the Novice Schedule to the Intermediate Schedule after we have been running a month or two.
• Second, you need to look at your time commitments and see what works best for you. The intermediate schedule has one more day per week of running and has longer runs. Make sure your training level meets your commitment level.
• And, third, where are you in your training. The intermediate schedule has more miles. It requires more work. With the added miles, you will be somewhat more prepared for the race. But it also carries the risks that come with more miles. The more you pile on the miles, the more chances you have for injury. So if your body is not ready for these miles, running intermediate could cause issues.

So think about where you are in your training. And which schedule you should be training. Talk you your coach or to me and let's make sure you are in the right place for you.

Checking in / Checking out:
We have assigned you to teams. Part of this is so we can make sure everyone safely finishes the run. Part of what we do is have you check in before the run and then when you finish the run, we ask you to check out on the roster (and a lot of coaches may ask for more information such as how long it took you to do the run).

Be sure you check out. As coaches, one of our responsibilities is to make sure everyone is back before we leave. If you haven't checked out, we can't be sure you finished. As the routes get longer, we will start going back out on the course looking for you. So get in the habit of checking in and checking out.

Keeping your Training Log:
In the book we handed out (and the electronic version), there is space for you to record daily your training runs. The book even has examples of how to do this. Get in the habit of recording your runs. This will help you to understand your training. There will be good days. There will be bad days. If you keep a log, you will be able to reflect on these good/bad days and hopefully learn how to make more of them good. If will also help us as coaches if we need to help you tweak your training.

Weekday Runs:
From looking at the message board, there appears to be quite a bit of activity toward runs other than your long weekend run. Michael has space on the web site to put groups that are running together so others may join.

So if you have a group that is starting to form and want me to add it to the message board, just send me the following and it will add it......Day of week, Level of Training (i.e. Novice or Intermediate..how far will you be running), where you will meet, when you will meet and a contact person, including how to contact (email/phone).

Have a good week. See you this weekend. - Don Garber, Head Coach