This is good to know. I feel pretty good, so I'm not too concerned about the overtraining yet, but I do want to be cautious of injury. I started running maybe a couple years ago and my knees were a big concern and I ended up taking a few months off before even trying again. My left knee is completely fine now and not in the picture at all, but every once in a while, my right knee hurts a little when I go up hills. This was brought to my attention yesterday pushing the double stroller up a steep hill. I'm sure that the 50 pounds of baby that I was pushing didn't help, but I still want to be careful.

So when I say I want to avoid overtraining, it's more along the lines that I want to avoid hurting myself again. I am a lot lighter than I was during my abbreviated comeback from a while ago, so I think I'm fine.

There's a winter all-comers indoor track meet at a college maybe 60 minutes from here. I am thinking about aiming for the mile here, if they still have the meet going on. I need to check this out, but I'm pretty sure they still have it around Christmas time. Once I get up to 50 miles per week or so, I will start shifting my training toward a more Sebastian Coe-type training that relies more on raw speed and less on mileage. 50 should be a good round number for keeping aerobic capacity up, especially if I keep a semi-long run (12-15 miles) in there once per week. Obviously I need to do a bit more research before jumping in headfirst but this is my thought process right now.

Also, I want to start weight training in a few months. I used to have a really good strength-oriented regimen that I did during college; my coach based it off of the training that Peter Coe had created for his son. I am not too interested in bulking up, obviously, but I do think that added strength can only help me. I have put on a little muscle since college (in addition to the fat) thanks in part to carrying around two babies all the time, but I think a running-centered lifting schedule would be beneficial. This wouldn't go into effect until around November when my mileage has peaked at around 50-55 miles or so per week.

I will be searching my files for the exact training program, I know I saved it somewhere. Once I put something together, I will be posting it. I'm sure all the SS guys here will rip it apart, but I'm not going for bulk at all. I only want to train to help my mile time get faster.

I ran 9.5 today in just over 1:20. I felt awful the last half of the run and my knee ended up hurting a lot toward the end so I walked the last little bit of the way home. The pace wasn't too quick, or anything; I felt really good and kept slowing myself down for the first four miles or so, but something didn't click right. I ended up puking when I got home. Not really sure what's going on, but I am going to take a day or two off. Ugh, I hate this.

Well that sucks, hope you feel better today. What do you think it was?

I think the nausea was because of eating too close to running. I had a big lunch and it must not have all digested. Not a big deal, I felt better about an hour later.

For the knee, I'm taking today and maybe tomorrow off. I will scale back mileage a little bit this week and might need to rethink the half marathon, but I am not too concerned as of right now. The half wasn't a huge goal or milestone for me, it was more of a thing to do so I could say "hey, I ran a half marathon."

I was thinking of buying the Peter Coe book "Winning Running." I am really interested in Sebastian Coe's training with the low mileage/ high intensity. I have never trained like that before as I've always been a high mileage guy. I am thinking that focusing more on my turnover and raw speed will be more beneficial to me than going out and grinding long, slow, distance--especially now that I have lost a lot of foot speed. Has anyone used this book or read it? It got pretty good reviews on Amazon...

Seb Coe was a world class 800/1500m runner who could run 46.x in the 400. It is cool to see his training, but as a training guide it isn't too valuable. I like where your head is at, pure speed training is under-utilized in many mid-distance and long-distance programs. When I say speed training I mean pure speed, not 200m-400m repeats that people call "speed work" but really isn't. I'm talking about 60m flyers, 8 sec. all out hill sprints, 150's, etc. You can slowly incorporate this without much effect on total volume. If you feel like you are "grinding out LSD" then just modulate your training a bit more with adding more tempo runs, threshold intervals, or fartleks into your weekly schedule.

Just curious why you don't think his training isn't too valuable to examine. I would think that for someone looking to increase raw speed in the 800/1500, it would be a good idea to use some of his concepts, especially if you have a solid base to start with.

By not too valuable, I mean that if you try to train like he did high intensity/low volume, it is very risky and probably not optimal. Americans tried low mileage/ high intensity in the 90s an early 2000s and we were at our worst. Some of the training concepts they used are still relevant today, but the training was tailored to one specific athlete, over a period of time where the training was adapted to him, and that athlete was Seb Coe. 46.x 143.x 3:44.x Seb Coe. Their concept was basically to run more hard workouts and rely less on mileage. This worked for Seb for a number of reasons, but it won't work on many others as has been proven before. It is all about finding the right balance for you. I would recommend getting the book to get an understanding of the style of training, but not really as a guideline of how to train. There is no reason you can get in good raw speed training while still getting in some good volume. All it takes is breaking down your workouts a bit and adding in some pure speed work and throwing in some hill sprints and strides after easy runs. Even after a tempo run you can blast out some 150s if you are feeling O.K.

Thanks, Every. That is exactly the explanation that I was looking for. I think that incorporating speed is the key for me as the fastest workouts I did in college were 300m repeats. In retrospect, these might have been faster than my 1500m pace, but they weren't developing the intense turnover that I had in high school but not in college. I could run 53 high in the 400 in high school and never broke 55 in college. Obviously I had more potential in college, but something had shifted that wasn't letting me run at my fastest. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing this difference was in the pure speed work that I did in HS with plyometrics and shorter sprints. I didn't do many of these in college.

I really like the Seb Coe training concept, and I will definitely be experimenting with it in the future once I lose a bit more weight, but I do think that the Sunday long runs are important for building endurance, and I don't think I can get that from a 4 miler like Coe could.

Update on the knee.

Still hurts, I was going to try and run tomorrow morning, just a couple miles, but I am going to wait a bit longer I think just to be safe. I think the problem might be my shoes as the Nikes that I had been running in don't have a lot of lateral support in them and I have had ankle stability issues in the past. I am thinking that this is the cause of my knee problem so I will probably not run again until I get a new pair of shoes.

It's so frustrating going without running now that I am back into it, but this is all I can do right now. I don't want to exacerbate the problem at all so I'm playing it safe.

Another update.

I'm pretty sure that it is my IT band troubling me. I've been researching knee injuries and it fits the description of an IT band injury the most--plus with my history of ankle and lateral movement problems, this is most likely the case. I tried jump roping today which was a very bad idea. I lasted 10 seconds before the pain became too intense.

I'm going to have to start some other type of exercise because I am getting really bored with pushups and sit ups. I was thinking of joining the gym and just start working on strengthening myself so I can have more power once I am able to start running again. I don't think I can handle plyometrics yet, which would be ideal, but lifting and perhaps swimming would be pretty good for now.

Swimming is probably a good choice. But also, **** swimming. I tried to keep up a swimming routine when my knee/calf was injured and I just couldn't do it. Too annoying to deal with other people in your lane, getting your **** together and going to the gym, bleh. Definitely a good cardio workout, though.

Well, I swam competitively in high school and was even recruited by a few colleges to swim for them, but I chose running over it. I wasn't a great runner at that point, but I enjoyed it more. I haven't swum in over 12 years though, aside from jumping in the pool once in a while for fun.

With that said, I would much rather run than swim. For now, I don't have much of a choice, though.

Swam 500 yards today. Really slow, but got a good cardio workout in. Then I aquajogged 2 sets of the 3,2,1 HIIT workout (3 minutes easy, 2 minutes tempo effort, 1 minute sprint). Not the world's longest workout, (21:26 total combined), but it was something at least.

Weighed in at 184.2 lbs this morning. Goal is to lose 5 pounds by the first of October. I've started doing yoga to work on my flexibility. I am also going to start lifting soon and I want to buy a foam roller. These things are all revolving around my main goal of a fast mile time come next year. I still haven't run my sub 6 mile this year, but obviously this is not as big of a priority as getting healthy.

Still haven't been able to run, but I am getting closer. I want to start doing light mileage again by the end of the month and if I can keep losing weight until then, I should be ready to race (albeit slowly) by January. Things are not as bad as they could be and I am feeling quite optimistic, actually. Much better feeling than even a week ago.