Making Plans for Nigel

Marathon training plans. Type that into a Google search and see how many hits are returned. 26 700 000 as of 02/12/2013! Amazingly a search for ‘Stupid cat facts’ produces only 2 730 000 results. And what do we take from that? Dunno...

Years ago when I started running there was no plan, well not for me! I just used to get out the door and run, the only plan would be a route; no times, pace or real objective to the session. Of course it was simplicity itself, and no thought was required. As runners gain experience they actually make goals and want to go faster (or further) as a result, that is when a plan comes in handy and some actual science is applied. Hmmm, runners always find a way to over complicate things.

After the marathon, one of the things I looked back at was my training plan. I used one of the Garmin plans; they can be downloaded straight to my GPS watch as a full schedule of runs. I missed 10 out of 90 training sessions in the 4 month plan, which isn't too bad, and felt that I coped with the plan pretty well. That might have told me something? Not sure. But one thing I have decided is that it was top heavy on interval work (short, fast sessions), at the expense of tempo runs (longer fast, but slower than an interval session). Whilst this might sound good for speed work (get some pace and turn it into a PB etc.), I reckoned it worked against me. Mainly as I need to work on running a consistent pace throughout a race. I'm a bugger for speeding up, slowing down, surging etc.! Another thing I think I needed was to apply some pace in my long runs under 25k’s. All long runs on this plan were at conversational pace, which is a low heart rate zone and not one that really gave me a taste of racing over that distance.

So, the hunt was on to find another plan. Criteria; free, some pace in the long runs, and some feedback on expected race time given the training times recorded. The myAsics plans looked the best fit. As noted before, I intend to do some half marathons in the lead up to Melbourne again, so it seemed like a good way to try them out. The initial goal time for the race (Warburton on 23^rd Feb.) was 1:43:17. This was based on the supplied marathon finish time of 3:54, a time that was probably a bit dodgy. Well, two weeks into plan and it already wants to adjust it to 1:37:20! 

Was a bit nervous accepting this! Biting off more than I can chew?

If that holds I am looking at a 2 ½ minute PB, unexpected if it happens. The assumption is that the course I run is flat and fast for a PB. A quick look at the profile for Warburton reveals a nice steady climb from the 8k mark to the 11k turnaround point. And February can be hot, even at 7:00am, so a PB may be the last thing on my mind.

Proposed route of Warburton half marathon. What goes up, must come down; hopefully intact....

So far the plan has been good in showing consistent improvement. It is slightly top heavy in tempo work (absolutely no interval work), but if I get bored I will change a few sessions. Summer and the Christmas/New Year period will be the test of faith with a training plan! Check back in January....