A Completely Different Training Approach

I got my marching orders today from my coach.  In reality, I chose them, but he started explaining what I have laying ahead of me.  Wow! What a difference from Ironman training!  The fact that I want to focus on my 5K and 10K times is essentially the polar opposite of long distance endurance training.  Which makes sense.  It also makes sense for me at this point in my life.  I have set some goals, but, in fact, I have no idea how this will turn out.  What I do know is that I want to be healthy.  I have a longstanding tendency to overdo things that I get into.  In life and work, this has its advantages, but in physical training, all it really does is set me up for injury.  That is not what I want to do.

My three main run workouts every week are as follows:  First, a workout with short (initially 10 seconds, ultimately working up to ~40 seconds) essentially all-out sprints, followed by full recovery, which means several minutes!  Initially, I'll only do two of these.  That's pretty much the complete opposite of running for 3 hours.  Of course, I'll be warming up and cooling down.  My second workout is more normal.  It's a 6-7 mile run where I warm up for 3 miles and run fairly hard for 3 miles.  Finally, hill repeats, running fast uphill for up to 100 meters.  That's it!

My goal is to work on my top end speed, without which, there can be no fast 5K time.  It makes sense.  Obviously, this is only the beginning of the process.  However, even the latter parts of my training this coming year will not include lots of slow running volume, which is completely different from what I'll be doing.  I'm excited to see what my body can learn at the age of 60.  I'm reminded of someone I met 25 years ago who ran his first sub-3 hour marathon at the age of 60.  Now, I'm not thinking about my marathon times, that would have me going in the other direction!