Brentwood-One Month Away

All, Jake has been meaning to get back onto his blog recently, but let me tell you this. He has never worked harder preparing for a race than he is for this one. He's had some excellent workouts, including one this morning. I won't ruin it, because he'll probably blog the workout details later today, but I will describe the plan we're working from.

He's on a 3 a week schedule, and there are a couple of big differences between previous preparation plans and this one.

First, he's running way more miles. Every workout now is at least 5k. He does one "open" 5k a week, where he just runs at whatever pace he feels like. We don't even really time it.

On alternate weeks, his middle workout is either a series of half-mile sprints (3 the first week, 4 and then 5 later in the plan) or a 23 minute 'interval' training session. In the interval training, he does 7 minutes at a comfortable (easy) pace, then runs at a pace he couldn't sustain for 5k but can sustain for 10 minutes, then for his third interval, he shifts back into the slower pace for 6 minutes.

His third workout each week is another 5k with a time goal. Each week, it gets progressively faster, as he builds toward the goal of 22:30 for the race. Last week, he timed himself at 23:10, which is a big gain from his PR, so let's hope it holds up.

Again, he's running very well and is very motivated to make all the benchmarks for this race.

Support him! If you supported him last time, please let me know that you're in again if you haven't already.

Thanks,
Jim

Jake at Chinatown

This is a professional photo taken at the Chinatown race. Jake is happy because it shows both of his feet off the ground.

He's going to be blogging again soon, because he's training really, really hard for Brentwood. It's probably one of his two favorite races. He likes Chinatown, too, but mostly because it's a steep course and therefore almost kills his father...

New Race for Sponsorship: Brentwood!

On May 28th, Jake will run the Brentwood 5k in toney Brentwood, California, and you can once again Join Team Jake!

To tell you a bit about the Brentwood race, it is a large race, with a generally competitive field. Whereas Chinatown, for example, attracts competitive runners as well as a large number of non-competitive runners (me, for example), Brentwood is more of a runner's race. Having said that, it's still quite a large field. Also, Jake will be in the 14 and under division, which means that he'll be running with kids as old as 14 years and 11 months old, whereas he just turned 8.

Brentwood is a special race to Jake, because two years ago, it was his first race, and this will be his third running. Last year, he ran 25:04 at Brentwood, setting his then PR. Here's more about the race.

This year, we're once again supporting WorldVision with his race. Here's how the sponsorship goes:

$10 for running and finishing the race
$5 for breaking his current PR (24:08, set at Chinatown)
$5 for finishing in the top 10 (last year, he would have had to run about 23:30 to do that)
$5 for finishing under 23:00

Again, the max total is $25, depending on the outcomes.

Last time, Jake raised $900, which meant he exceeded his goal of collecting enough to sponsor one child and actually sponsored more like 2 and a half.

To let us know you're sponsoring him, just email me. Alternatively, leave a comment on the blog with your email address, and I'll make sure you're once again on Team Jake!

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