Training

I am trying some new things for the upcoming ATL Half Marathon, which I hope help improve my time and conditioning over the 13.1 Marathon. I am mixing things up more with the running, stationary bike, and elliptical, and wish I had access to an indoor pool as well, to throw in some swimming.  Monday I go for an hour on the treadmill for speed, trying to hit a better 10K time, and after that slow it down a little after I hit 10K, and then bike or do the elliptical for 45 min - 1 hour after.  Tuesday I am doing 90 min on the treadmill on a 2 incline, a light incline to increase difficulty and a little bit slower pace with gradual increase, followed by 15-30 min on the bike.  Wednesday I do road work, a minimum of 10.25 in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood I live in has some flat points, but not many, and some really nice hills, I don't try to kill myself with speed, just a nice steady pace with gradual increases.  Thursday I may not do any running, and just do an hour on the elliptical, then the bike for at least 45 minutes.  Friday is 5K day, I turn the treadmill up and go hard to do a 5K, and then turn it down a bit for the rest of the hour, and may follow this up with the bike or elliptical.  Saturdays is long run day 2-2.5 hour run, in a nice local park, again very hilly and even some trailing involved, to top it off I will hit the bike in the afternoon for no less than 90 minutes, going on somewhat fatigued legs to try and make them ready to go longer.  Sunday is rest day.

I've also been doing a lot of calf raises with and without weights, just trying to build up more strength in the muscles.  Also deep knee bends on legs days, even on nonleg days also, I'll do about 300 straight of them, widening my stance, to almost horseback stance, for those familiar with the martial arts.  I do not go down to 90 or come up to 180 on these, I stay between 110 and 170 at most, that way the muscles do constant work and really fatigues them, also can cause jello legs.  I do the deep knee bends barefoot, and most of the other training I am doing is in my Vibram Five Finger KSO's.  This is just a breakdown of my cardio and additional leg work I am doing with my regular weight lifting.  I am also constantly working on my ChiRunning forms and improving them to help me be a better runner and injury free.  I would love to have some boxes to do plyometrics as well, to do jumping with, and may get a jump rope, along with adding some martial arts routines in here as well.  I will see how all this works out come 11/25, hopefully it helps me a lot.  Any suggestions would be appreciated as well.