We have arrived at the end of another month. Another month of Maffetone endurance training has passed us by. Well, maybe it’s safer to say that another month has passed us by. Cause the training part was pretty sparse.
The end of March marks the six month of my using the Maffetone method as a training routine to try and improve my endurance and run faster. This doesn’t mean running faster during the training runs, but running faster in races. Since I’ve only done one official race, it will take at least one more for me to get any decent understanding of how this method has been working.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! I’ll post a review of the past six months shortly, but for now, let’s focus on March. Which, weather-wise, sucked.
March came in less like a lion and more like a pride of them. It’s going out like a single lion, which I suppose is an improvement. But a lion is still a lion, and when I got in my car this morning, it was sleeting. That changed to snow for a brief period, at which time I thought I might literally have an aneurism. I am so. Sick. Of. Winter. And it showed this March.
I ended February pretty weak, with only two runs in last fourteen days of that month. March started of worse, since I went fifteen days between runs. I ran on March 1st, and then not again until March 16th. I hit the wall. I couldn’t stand the idea of running in the cold and dark any more. I had a hard time even getting out of bed on time. It was the tail end of a long winter, and the tail was barbed.
I finally did get myself up and out, and since that March 16th run, I managed to get myself out the door four more times. A measly six runs in a thirty-one day period. Not too great. Especially for a guy who has delusions of running a half-marathon in June. Yeah. That’s two-and-a-half months away. I might be screwed.
Except…
I caught a little glimmer of hope on my last run. It was on March 28th, after work. Daylight Savings Time is back on, and it’s light now until nearly 7PM. That last run, it was a little rainy, more misty than anything else. But it was 51 degrees. It was the first time I had the chance to run in short and just a few shirts. It was the first time all winter that I could run without having to gear up in fifty pounds of winter protection. It made such a huge difference and was enough to make me remember how much I enjoy running.
(Ask me again how much I enjoy it in the dead of August when it’s 95 degrees.)
So, with all that said, how’d the month stack up statistically? Let’s take a look:
Overall, my average pace with the high and low paces thrown out went up about 5 seconds. Given how little I ran, I think that’s actually pretty good. I also have a new heart rate monitor now that is much more reliable that the one I had been using, so the heart rate data will start to be better to review in the coming months.
Overall, March wasn’t stellar. But April brings new promises, and as the weather gets nicer, I’m hoping my training improves.
That’s it for now. I’ll post a six month review in the next day or two.
Scott C Lyerly 