The intervals this week are a bit shorter. They're designed to be done as quarters on a track. If you don't know what a quarter is, it is a quarter mile, roughly 400m, which is one lap of a track. If you don't have access to a track or don't like running on a track, run 2 minutes hard instead of a quarter. People will ask what pace to do, and that depends on how fast you're running usually. A good rule of thumb is the pace you might run for a 5k (3.1 mile) race. You've been doing 3 minute repeats in some of the past weeks, so just try and go at a slighly faster pace than you did on those. The good thing about doing them on a track is you can check your pace on each one, and see if you are consistent. The goal should be do do them at a consistent pace, or with the last few intervals faster than the first ones. With that in mind, you can start at a pace you know you can handle, and then make sure you hit at least that pace on each one.

A note on runner's etiquette. When running on a track be careful of other runners. DO NOT use the inside lanes, when you are jogging. They are reserved for runners trying to run fast. So you can use the inside lane when doing your intervals, if there are faster runners on the track, it is a nice courtesy to move out into lane 2 before they come by if you see them coming. Let me know what pace you end up doing the intervals.

Happy running!

And don't forget to email me any questions you may have at weldonjohnson@letsrun.com.

Day	Training	Total mileage
1	Off-Day. It's Labor Day!	0
2	Easy run of 4.5-5 miles or 45-50 minutes.	4.5
3	Off	0
4	4.5 miles 10 minute warm-up Then do some strides (3-4) to get your body loose for the intervals. Do 8*400m (one lap of a track) with 2 minutes rest (or you can jog half a lap instead if you want to keep moving). (See notes at top- try and make sure you have something left for the last ones). Do a 10 minute cool down with 3-4 strides.	4.5 miles
5	Optional run (30-40 minutes).	3-4 optional
6	Off (if you like to run on both days on the weekend, you could move day 5 here)	optional
7	Long run. 17 miles. If you want to run for time, try and hit 3 hours. This will be less than 3 hours for some of you, but is plenty of distance. If any of you are in the South where the temperatures are still really, really hot, be careful and watch your body. Run early in the morning (ie start before 7am) when it's much cooler. As always if something feels abnormally wrong stop. The goal in training is to push yourself while your body is healthy. If something is hurting, it's too hot, etc, you'll only compromise your chances in the marathon by continuing to push it. The idea is to train hard, but smart. Happy Running!	16-17

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