Week 1!

O.K., since we are trying to adjust to the new orthotics, how about we do a nice 6 days of 4 of them at 4 or 5 miles at your regular pace of around 7:30, or more importantly, at an average heart rate of 133. I assume these are lunch workouts. On the weekend do a long run of 10 or 12 miles easy (keep below and hour and a half), and a midweek ten miler. Now on the midweek ten miler, we will try some pickups not to exceed about 80% of max heart rate. Since we are starting with an estimated max of 178, that would give you about 142 HR for 80%. After warming up for a half hour or so, try and complete 8 to 10 of these striders. These are more for your biomechanics, because the slow stuff tends to tighten up your quads, hamstrings, and hip flexors. Now if your orthotics allow, do these pickups until your heart rate hits around 142, and then recover back to 133/134. Keep them less than two minutes even if your heart rate doesn't get to 142 on the first few. Remember, these are more for biomechanics and to see how the orthotics feel at faster speeds, not any kind of real speed work. That should give you around 36 to 41 miles. Then take saturday or sunday off to enjoy your gal. Once we get your pains to subside, we will start to build!