The obvious answer to that is Chester Marathon on October the 9th, and for that one I'll start training on 6th June, following Pfitzinger & Douglas's 18 week '55 - 70 miles per week' schedule. I'm going to pull together my thoughts on what went well/not so well with Paris in the next few days and that will include why I'm switching from 'Brain Training' schedule.
That leaves me 8 weeks, so what am I doing with that period? Overall, I'm looking to increase my volume and breadth of training.
In terms of running I'm following a 5 week recovery programme that will get me to 41 miles a week and then I'll look to do 45 - 50 a week in the last 3 weeks. There won't be much in terms of speedwork or tempo runs, just strides once a week, and long runs will only peak at 15 miles. Idea is just to give me a nice base before the hard work starts in June. In that period I'm also looking to get runs completed back with the club and off road - to help break the monotony of the canal.
I've booked one race so far, that's a 10k in Bridlington on 4th June, and the idea is that that will help me gauge my training pace and objective in the marathon training. I'm also considering a 10 mile on 22nd May and may do another if I spot anything interesting.
As well as running I'm also looking to incorporate walking in the Dales every weekend (maybe more over the next few weeks with the bank holidays and opportunities for camping). Plus, I'm looking to take advantage of the lower training intensity to squeeze in some weight training 2-3 times a week and cross training once. Nothing strenuous and mainly vanity prompted.
The increase in volume will hopefully help with the other target for the next 2 months...drum roll...
...losing weight! Yes, I know, that hoary old chestnut again. I do tend to lose weight easily this time of year so am looking to take advantage of that and the extra activity to lower the weight ahead of the marathon training. During the Paris training I did drop my weight but not by the amount I'd hoped to so would like to get it out of the way as far as possible so that all I need worry about is the training from June.
The cold finally began to recede yesterday and I did my first run: 7 mile trail run. The cold made it feel hard work in terms of lungs but the legs felt good. Only exception to that was the right calf which was still sore, but the physio said that was still feeling 'full' so no surprise and no concern.
Off for a quickie now (fnaar, fnaar) in the new trail shoes: Saucony ProGrid Peregrines.
4 comments:
Sounds like an excellent and well-structured plan to me as per usual :)
And you bought 20 tins of beans? Looks like I won't be the only wind-assisted runner out there ;) I can't go near commercial beans as they always have bloomin onion or garlic powder in them.
Hey! Just caught up on your post marathon posts. You deserve amazing congratulations- I know you missed your target time (but due to the heat, being less than 10 mins off is not bad)- but you still got to smash your previous pb- excellent work :)
And no ambulance which is always a good thing.
Glad you're recovering well -- it goes to show that practising these things during training can really pay off. It'll be interesting to see how you manage over the next weeks though. Are you going to be cautious, or are you confident that you'll manage with the reduced volume and intensity?
Good look with the weightloss too. It really is a bugger trying to combine that with hard training!
Recovery programme, did you design your own or following someone's?
New shoes, nice post marathon well done present - I like.
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