When I write training plans for runners, I ask them for the holidays, weekends away and busy weeks they’ve got in their personal life over the months ahead. Because if you’re gong to tick off all your runs, a bit of forward planning and a realistic approach to run-life balance is needed.
In the run up to Manchester in 2013, one week I did all my runs for the week by Friday morning so I could go away for my birthday for the weekend. I wouldn’t recommend this approach to training.
Post long run sweaty smugness
For the next couple of weeks I’m away for the weekend so fitting in a longer run will be a challenge. So, as last weekend’s race meant I’d effectively done my tempo effort on Saturday, it made sense to keep this structure to my running for the next few weeks.
This week I did my long run on Thursday and a tempo run on Sunday. Moving things about in this way takes some forward planning. You can’t get to Sunday morning and then move your long run back in time. And doing two long runs too close together can mean you’re overdoing it.
As most people find the main reason for missing a session is lack of time (and a big factor in getting injured is doing too much on tired legs), a bit of forward planning really helps.
Next time you sit down to plan your training cycle for a race, pull out your calendar, be realistic about what impact the fun things in life will have on training and be creative when you try to make it all work together.
This week’s miles
Start/finish of my 350m efforts
Tuesday – 12x350m – the session I cut short with a bad back last week. 350m instead of 400m because there’s a loop by my flat that size.
Thursday – paced long run, 12 miles at 8:18/mile
Saturday – 3 mile easy run
Sunday – tempo run, 8 miles with 2×2 miles @7:15
Total: 33 miles
Catch up
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
I was away Thursday-Sunday but timed my train back so that I could get my long run in after I got back. I’ll be away again Saturday-Thursday. Thinking of getting my long run In on Friday before I head away. As for other runs, hopefully I can find somewhere fun to run and sightsee at the same time!
I am curious as to how much you need to improve from the beginning of your plan until race day in order to achieve your 99 minute goal — that is, what do you think your half time would have been at the beginning of the plan versus at the end of the plan? I ask because I am training for a marathon in December, but have no idea what my pace will be by then. I realize that your results and ability to increase speed may have little or nothing to do with my own, but I am curious (if you don’t mind sharing).
Thanks and happy running.
Richard
Hey Richard. I need to take 2 mins off. It doesn’t sound a huge amount but I trained for a half at the start of the year so my pb is pretty recent. I’m planning a post on how to set a realistic but challenging goal so look out for that but generally I’d say about 5% improvement in a training cycle.
Laura.