Today was my weekly long run, and the final run for March. In the month of March, I ran a total of 93.15 miles, which is an all-time high for me by 20 miles. Today's long run was also a new high at 8 miles.

Today also marks the end of week 1 of my new training program. The current program is one that I generated from the Runner's World Smart Coach, and will last for 8 weeks. Here are the parameters I provided to generate the program:

• Recent Race Time: 27:30 for a 5K (this was my Garmin time for the Bunny Boogie).
• Training for a 5K.
• Currently train 21-25 miles per week.
• I want to train at a moderate level.
• Long run day = Sunday.
• Schedule length = 8 weeks.
• Starting week = Monday, 3/24/2008

The first week went pretty well. There are a few differences between this program and the one I just finished (Hal Higdon's Intermediate 5K):

• Easy runs are 4 or 5 miles.
• Interval workouts alternate between 800m and 1600m intervals (different days, of course)
• Tempo runs are quite a bit longer.
• I have prescribed paces for each run (paces get quicker in the 2nd 4 weeks).
• Easy run pace is 11:04
• 800m @ 4:14
• Tempo @ 9:28
• 1600m @ 8:56
• With this program, my longest long run will be 10 miles.

So maybe I'll top 100 miles in April, who knows? What I do know is that Spring is here, and in Texas, that means that Summer is practically a week away--at least that's how it felt today. Nothing like a long run in really warm weather, with high humidity and a lot of wind! For the record, I completed my 8 miles in 1:35:59, which was well off my prescribed pace of 11:04/mile, but aren't I supposed to slow down so many seconds or minutes per mile for every 5 or 10 degrees above 50 degrees?