This ink don't run

In the old epics, the Fates record everything that will happen to mighty heroes, and even the gods can do nothing to prevent it. If Lachesis pronounces that Achilles will run ladder intervals on Tuesday, then Zeus himself cannot deter him from the track.

Alas, my personal training plan seems not to be inscribed on that sempiternal scroll. The Fates have other ideas entirely, announced sometimes by my baby daughter's oracular nighttime cries, or other times by the hushed catastrophe of my Outlook work calendar.

So far I've missed a few runs during my ever-hopeful 16-week training cycle for the Brooklyn Half (and in fact the oracle has yet tell us when that race will happen). In the last two weeks I've tried two methods of recouping those lost miles.

Last week I dropped an easy 5-mile because of snow, and just scattered its miles to other runs, making four fairly long runs rather than five normal runs.

This week I missed a run early in the week, so I squished all the runs to late-week. Now I have some lower-mileage runs, but I have no rest days until next Thursday - six runs in a row, including a 12-mile long run.

It's still early in my training cycle, so the after-effects aren't all that dire or obvious. But I believe I prefer more frequent consecutive runs to longer runs with rest days. Conventional wisdom is that consistent, high mileage creates a strong base and prevents injury. Then again I've heard that at my ripe old age, 42, it's better to run less, but faster. In an effort to cheat death and skirt the Fates, I'm trying to combine the two. The burgeoning snowdrops in Prospect Park give me eternal hope. But my preferences count for little, and final say goes to the great training plan in the sky.

I actually don't like surprises. They make me cranky and brittle. But the world is what it is, so incorporating the unforeseen into my training schedule seems like a good idea. Resolved: from now on, each week, at least one surprise run.

Yeah, I better write that down in ink.

The week past:
Mon Easy, 6 mi
Tues rest - "Spring forward" oversleeping
Weds rest - stupid early meeting
Thur fartlek, 7.5 mi
Fri progression, 6.2 mi
Sat easy, 4 mi
Sun long, 12 mi