My daughter went to the orthodontist yesterday and it looks like she will need braces earlier than we had planned. Unfortunately this puts a significant dent in my endurance training budget, aka, I no longer have a budget. Fortunately almost all of my races were paid before the end of last year to get the early bird discounts (remember, my wife is cheap). Unfortunately this means I have to eliminate coaching from my budget. With that in mind I spent last night scrambling to come up with a plan that will get me to my 25k in May safely. In the past my plan has always been similar to Higdon's running plans in that the bulk of my miles come on the weekend and my long run usually makes up at least 50% of my weekly distance. I've done some reading over the past few years and have come to the conclusion that your long run should be no more than 25-33% of your total distance. Unfortunately I don't think that's realistic given my need to train for swimming and biking, but I would like to get it down to no more than 40%. I would also like to increase the number of runs per week from 3 or 4 to 5 or 6, which allows me to reduce the mileage per run. I followed the Barry P plan from Slowtwitch.com which includes 6 runs; 3 short runs, 2 medium runs (double the short run), and 1 long run (triple the short run). My plan is as follows:
I'm concerned that my biking might suffer so I might try to add a third bike session on Sunday that I could turn into a brick. As the 25k gets closer and my running volume gets higher I will look at eliminating this, but to start my overall weekly volume should be the same as it has been (around 6.5 hours per week).
My goal pace for the River Bank Run is 9:40 min/mile. Most of my runs will be in the 10 - 11 min/mile range. I plan on making one of my medium runs a tempo run once my body starts to adjust to the workload.
The big advantage of having a coach was the lack of decision making on my part. I received a plan and that's what I followed. I actually love the idea of coaching myself but have the attention span of a 3 year old and often find myself changing my plan to adopt the latest article I read. Hopefully I can stay focuses and execute this plan as I think it's a good one.
Dang, I though I had nicely organized charts.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about the 25% of your total miles thing, but I guess since I've been running 25-32 mph and my long run has been 10 miles, I've been sticking to it be default. I'm in the same pickle as you with biking -- I know I need to do it more days per week if I want to get better, but I don't want the other disciplines to suffer.
Good news, though, you will see improvement if you start adding even one more day of running per week. I ran my first marathon on three days of running per week, but once I bumped that up to 4/5/6 days, I had a more respectable time AND training wasn't such a shock to the body!
that's mpw not mph... autocorrect! lol!
DeleteI was going to say... damn! You are fast!
ReplyDeleteI've heard from so many places that to improve your running you need to run more... not just more miles, but more often as that will eventually let you run more miles.
Hopefully you and everyone else are correct! Unfortunately running is probably my least favorite of the 3 disciplines. Having my dog run with me helps and once the snow melts I have a Tuesday/Thursday group that gets together for some speed work and hills. It's just like swimming, the shared suffering makes the time go so much faster!
As for the charts... I am a bit of a nerd and love Excel. You wouldn't believe how many training plans I've designed only to decide I didn't like it and throw it away. I love charts!