A bit of an overview of my plans over the coming months to help me solidify them.

The focus remains on building a base from which to work further on goals in 2016 with as (current) main goal a PR at the Brussels 20km on 29 May. To achieve this, it is for now mostly a matter of increasing the weekly distance.

At the time of writing, this will be my first week of four running days in a while. The total time run this week will be around 130 minutes. For the time being increments will be done in terms of time rather than distance. During a run I also only keep track of time, not distance or pace, to not distract myself by trying to go faster than feels OK. Some runs might have some strides at the end, but nothing special happens beyond that.

Over the coming months, this weekly running should increase to five runs per week and a possible four hours per week by the end of the year. Of course, this is the most optimal schema. There’s a possibility of some setbacks. The detailed increments will not be listed here, but a monthly overview would be:

  • Week of 5 October: four runs, 150 minutes total.
  • Week of 2 November: four runs, 180 minutes total.
  • Week of 30 November: five runs, 210 minutes total.
  • Week of 21 December: five runs, 240 minutes total.

While there are currently no specific plans of adding speed workouts within this, I imagine this will happen around the halfway point before getting increasingly bored with the monotony of constant easy runs.

In terms of races, none come with any particular hope of a good time, but it is a nice distraction. For the moment, eyes are set on:

  • 4 October: Belfius Brussels “minimarathon” aka 5k. Mostly to see how the legs are. Due to the downhill in this route, I will be hesitant to look at the time gotten from this one.
  • 25 October: Foulées Joyeuses 5k. Depending on how the previous one felt, go for a proper 5k PR on this. Sub 22 minutes seems like the minimum if properly recovered. Sub 21 minutes would be nice. Sub 20 would be the best, but let us remain realistic for now.
  • 20 December: Corrida Gaston Roelants 10k. By this time legs should be OK for an actual race, but I will have no clue whatsoever what to expect. At least the route should feel familiar enough so I will not get caught out by that.

All these are nice plans, but one thing remains the one and only actually important focus: DO NOT GET INJURED AGAIN.