Phasing into races

After successfully completing two very easy 3 mile runs, I am ready to cautiously declare myself as having returned to running. The real question is how things will progress from here. I'm hoping that my 3-1/2 hour bike ride last weekend is a sign that my endurance is in reasonable condition. My runs have been at a VERY slow pace, like 10+ mpm on flat terrain. However, this actually fits with my original plans. My goal for the early part of this year was to execute a real base building phase which I have never really done in a formal manner. I planned to use the Maffetone approach which has me keeping my maximum HR at 145bpm. To assist with this, I have changed the default display on my Garmin to display heartrate in place of pace while running. Of course, since it still displays time and distance, I can obviously do the calculation in my head. However, it should cut down on my tendency to constantly monitor my pace and to focus more on heartrate.

I have a semblance of a race schedule set up for the first part of the season. However, already, two races have are off. We cancelled our trip to Disneyworld after me being sidelined by my injury and my wife's training going south after a November illness. The next target for her is Big Sur which is supposed to be beautiful. I am still in Coyote Two Moons and am remaining hopeful that my progress will allow me to join the fun an luncacy of that race again. With an average pace of 3mph, it really is more like a long hike where I run the downhills. The only other possible race before then is Sequoia which I will treat as a training run. It is pretty tentative at this point as my son has a potential playoff basketball game that night and we also have a weding invite for the same day. Will play that one by ear.

After Coyote Two Moons, I plan to finally run the Diablo 50m since it doesn't fall on my wife/mother/nephew/mother-in-law's birthday weekend. Those two races should get my endurance up. I then want to have a "big" month of May before tapering for States in June. I didn't get into Miwok this year (no 3-peat for me) so I will look for another race in early May. Options include the following:

• 5/2 - Sycamore Canyon 50K or Wild Wild West 50K
• 5/9 - Quicksilver 50m or PCT 50m
• 5/16 - Bishop High Sierra 100K or 50m

I'm leaning towards one of the 50 milers as all of the above except Quicksilver would require travel and I don't like to travel for anything shorter than a 50m. PCT or Bishop would add in some good altitude training before the Western States Training Camp, but Quicksilver is the easy choice. I plan to keep Ohlone and Mt. Diablo 50K events on my schedule, but plan to keep them as training runs to be followed by my taper.

After States, I really have not firmed up any plans. I have some ideas of other 100s I'd like to do, but will probably be limited to those that do not fill early. I will likely return to Javelina again and consider making a streak of it. However, I really can't look that far ahead right now. I am most focused on the immediate comeback. I will do my first run of an hour or longer this weekend. I will also probably do another long bike ride to keep the endurance up. It really is day by day at this point.