Week 1 Welcome

Welcome to Abe’s Army! I’m Linda Jones and I help organize the Platoon Leaders who will be your running coaches over the next 12 weeks. We're extremely excited that 400 "recruits" decided to take the enrollment challenge and train for Abe's Amble. The leaders--your 2nd Lieutenants in Abe's Army--are honored that you want to work with us on one of your important goals. For many of you, you've already learned to love running and how setting goals makes you disciplined and gives you a sense of success. Some of you are using running as a fitness goal to improve your endurance and get in better shape. For some, this is about stretching yourself and finding out if you are capable of things you never thought you could do. Regardless of your reason for starting with the group, you will be able to find a path to success. We encourage you to write your goals in your training log and really think about what you are setting out to achieve. Every runner in our club has a personal story to share about how running has contributed to their life and brought them a lot of confidence in the value of practice, training and working toward goals.

If you are a new recruit and never run before—don’t be scared. Every one of us started that way! In 2004, I was over age 50 and hadn’t run since playing soccer in high school. I’d just lost a lot of weight with regular walking and some weight training, but I knew I needed to push up my level of fitness to maintain my weight loss. That first week, I was huffing and puffing and could hardly keep up. I wasn’t sure running was something I could do and I didn’t have any thoughts about running after Abe’s Amble. Today, three years later, I am a slow but committed runner who is looking to run a marathon this year! More than anything, through Abe’s Army and the Springfield Road Runners Club, we've found the value of teamwork and how encouraging and supporting each other makes it easier to work hard and celebrate the successes. You'll find at least one person, or if my own experience stands true, many persons, in this club who will inspire you, that you can learn from, and you will call friend!When you are setting your goals, keep them clearly stated, measurable, and REALISTIC. If you've been a coach potato this past winter, don't expect to run like the wind this summer. Remember that any accomplished athlete trains months and years to reach high performance goals. If you are struggling with inactivity, overweight, high triglycerides or other health problems, it takes as much time to undo that pattern as it took for the problem to develop. You will not become healthy and high performing overnight! But by working incrementally on your goal, you can make incredible improvements. The most common reasons that runners drop out from the sport is setting unrealistic goals, expecting too much in their performance, and overtraining for their ability and falling prone to injuries. The training program in your logs is realistic, proven in many past running programs, and will produce the results you need to meet your goal to run Abe's Amble.The training program is designed for you to run, run/walk or walk three times a week. This is very important as you are building muscle strength and endurance in these runs. Some of the distances in the training log look intimidating. When you read 2 or 4 miles for the first week—don’t freak out! We are talking about moving around a course from 10 to 20 minutes per mile. This means you will be exercising for up to 40 minutes. If you take longer, that is ok. The program has been re-designed from last year’s to put the longer runs on Tuesdays to make it easier for you to run longer with your coaches at your side and for you to accomplish the shorter runs on your own. For long runs, the goal is always to finish the distance and not worry about the time it takes you to cover it! At the beginning of training, speed is not as important to new runners and walkers. Once you have learned to develop your form, leg action, and comfort in movement, the pace can be increased. Your platoon leaders will help you adjust your pace and/or distance to make the training runs possible.

Cross training days help build endurance and make daily exercise a habit. Walking is sufficient for cross training but you will get extra value from selecting other aerobic exercises and weight resistance workouts as part of your cross training. We'll give you more information about this in the coming weeks. The most important part of your training is the rest day! Your muscles need recovery time as much as they need exercise. Plan at least one day per week for a break from exercise to give your muscles time to rebuild. This is actually an important part of the program since during this recovery phase, muscle cells rebuild stronger than they were before!

Take a look at the training program now and come back in a few days to see our training information on Frequently Asked Questions!Remember to smile when you run! I’ll see you at the finish line!