February 5th Preview

Into the year’s second month, your distance climbs to eight miles this Sunday. You run the first four of those with our marathoners.

The route (with an 8:00 start from the Eugene Running Company): Oakway and Coburg Roads to Ferry Street Bridge and don’t cross. Turn left onto bike path, to Autzen footbridge and across. Turn right, past Ferry, to “0.5” milepost. Turn AROUND there and come back the same way: Autzen, Ferry and store. GPS distance is 8.13 miles.

Bring a drink for delivery at Rose Garden (near turnaround). Weather forecast: starting temperature in 40s with rain likely.

WEEK FOUR LESSON: YOUR EXTRAS

Question: If I have raced this distance before, can or should I do more training than this program lists?

Answer: More isn’t necessarily better. For these months, please buy into this program of long runs as written. It has a proven record of success, with runners who follow this training plan the closest usually doing the best in our designated race of the season. Stick to the scheduled distances on Sundays, neither shorter nor longer, and take as many of these runs as possible with the group. The average increase of one mile week already pushes the safe limit of 10 percent, and one of the goals here is to keep you healthy throughout the program. Adding extra miles could put you at risk of injury, and a goal is to get you safely to the starting line.