It's all in the planning

Browsing through the internet, I have seen that there are many many marathon training plans available - even some marathons have their own training plans, typically with separate plans for beginners and experienced marathon runners. There are specialist plans by experienced marathon runners and others by running magazines publications too. The Runners World website has an interesting collection of marathon training plans as they are set for a goal of a range of finishing times and indeed there is one that covers my target time of 4hrs 59 mins 59 secs (well, it's a 5 hr training plan really - but I hope that the training required for one second less would not be too different!)

My issue with training plans is that they assume quite a bit about the runner and appear to be quite rigid. Monday do this, Tuesday do that - which is fair enough in some respect, but there is a lack of flexibility to the regime. From talking to some runners I feel they get too obsessed with the plan, they don't look at the bigger picture of how they are currently feeling and what impact the training is having on them. The obsessed have a day off from training, but then feel guilty for it. For me, that seems like taking the enjoyment out of it.

I know I'm not going to follow a plan rigidly, but would benefit from an influence from a training plan; after all I am after a goal to complete the marathon and within my dream time if possible. The My Asics Plan is a good compromise - it's more dynamically driven by requiring more up front information about the runner and devises a tailored plan accordingly. Unlike the other plans I have seen, it starts off by asking for gender and age - I think that means the younger ones can get away with less training and get a bigger improvement in performance. It then asks what running I can currently do - I may be new to marathons, but I do have a few half marathons under my belt and surely that must count for something in working out what I can achieve and the level of training I can/need to do. So I declared that I can do a half marathon in 2hrs 15mins. At this point I should declare that I do have a lifetime ambition of a sub 2 hour half marathon - I've seen it done and I want one, but that's for another day (idea for a new blog? One's enough thank you!).

The plan then asks what my target time is and I duly specify 4hrs 59 mins 59 secs - it's quite satisfying that it does allow me to specify this time exactly, knowing how important it is to me!

The plan then asks how many days per week I wish to train. The minimum I could specify is 3 days - I have a lot of improvement to make here, so it just doesn't seem enough to do 3 days. I've run 4 days a week pretty happily in the past with 5 days being too much for me to recover from, so I think 4 days it will be. And with consideration to the busy lives we lead, it finally asks on which day I will have the most time to do a long run - Sunday.

I clicked the magic button and hey presto - a training plan, just for me is presented. It starts off with a week of conditioning, then a month of 'getting faster' then quite a period of running further distances, before tapering off for the big day itself.

Where I will differ from the plan is the execution of it. I can agree with the plan that Sunday is generally my long run day with the distance gradually getting longer, so that's OK for me as the plan has Monday as a rest day too. I know from experience that if I do run the next day after a long run, problems occur. I can squeeze a couple of short runs before I leave for work, but that means starting the run by 5:45 a.m.. I generally cannot do Tuesday evening, so Tuesday morning can be my hilly 5k (mentioned previously - it is tough, but I do really benefit from it - read on to find out why!). Wednesday and Friday evenings are my best bets for a 'mid-distance' 5 mile or 10k required by the plan.

As for this week's running, an opportunity for me to run at Brueton parkrun arose this week; so I grabbed it with great anticipation - my last Brueton run was in late March and although a slower one for me, was significant in that it confirmed my pain free return to running. So this time, with a few of those now famous hilly 5k's behind me, I hoped to show some improvement (maybe sub 27 mins?) and instead of starting as usual at the back, I was two thirds of the way down the huge field of 182. Off we went (still on the Winter Course) and I ran at an ambitious PB pace to start with and managed to hold on to it until lap 2's rise up to the tennis courts where it all started catching up with me - for the last 500 metres I was able to recover the pace before finishing in a confidence boosting 26:02 on my watch - only about 20 seconds off my Brueton parkrun PB. Magnificent!

My legs certainly felt the parkrun effort, so I turned Sunday into my rest day, opting to do my long run on Bank Holiday Monday. Plan was to do 10 miles. Whilst my speed is clearly returning to my shorter runs, my longer distance running is still way off - so a great opportunity to have a go at running closer to my target marathon pace (11 mins or so per mile). I haven't ever planned to run at this pace before, so I do need to get used to it. I did the first 5 miles at 10:30 - 10:45 pace and the second 5 miles at 10:45 to 11:00 pace. I did it, but certainly knew that 10 miles was my limit that day.

I did a couple more 5 mile runs during the week, before the highlight of May's running calendar, the Knowle Fun Run. It went brilliantly for me; I ran consistently and posted a time of 41:25 which is a massive 10 mins off my time from last year's time of 51:11, but sadly the course is about half a mile shorter this time (about 4.67 miles compared to 5.2 miles)!