A Plan

Marathon training. It technically started last week, so I figured I should share my plan.

Since I’ve been so injury prone over the tenure of my running career, choosing the right plan has proved to be difficult. I don’t want to run too much and hurt myself, but I also don’t want to run too little and be ill prepared. My Philly Marathon training was less than stellar and I topped off at an 18 mile long run, and I know I can do better. I’ve been slowly and steadily keeping running as a part of my routine, and while I still have some shin pain here and there, I’m confident for this go-around.

Running both the Chicago Marathon and the NYC Marathon are two dreams of mine – unfortunately I’m running them both in the same year, 4 weeks apart. Because of this close time frame, I’m focusing on Chicago as my “race” and NYC as more of a “fun” run. My plan is to do an additional long run after Chicago, but to really just keep running whatever I can between the two.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about training, it’s that having the plan on paper can only take you so far. There are bound to be situations where you can’t get in your planned run the day it’s scheduled, or you have to skip it completely. With everything that’s been going on with my GI lately and a planned trip to Europe in July, I’ve had to adjust my plans to make it as flexible as possible.

So, I’m looking to do 4 miles 4x a week with a long run for the first five weeks, and then from there one of the runs during the week will bump up to 5, and eventually 6. With the way I’ve scheduled it out, if I don’t miss any long runs, I’ll be able to get in three 20 milers (if I actually do accomplish that, I’ll try for a 21 or 22 in there). I’m going to do my best to cross-train as well, with some yoga, weight lifting, HIIT and tabata workouts, and whatever else I can get my hands on.

Fingers crossed for an injury free training cycle that can hopefully bring me a PR!