Deep within my heart lies a melody
A song of old San Antone.
Though actually it's more rock and roll than country, because today saw the start of my training plan for November's San Antonio Rock & Roll marathon. It is my goal race for this year, and my lofty aim is to try and run a sub-3 hour marathon - that equates to roughly a 6:50 average pace. A pipe dream perhaps, but if you're going to set a goal you may as well aim high. The plan I designed is partly based on the concepts I learned at the RRCA coaching class, and partly on things I know to have worked for me in the past. It is a 23 week schedule, split into three phases - 13 weeks of base building, 7 weeks of sharpening and 3 weeks of tapering that takes me up to race day.
I have given myself a specific pace range for every run from now until November. This morning my schedule dictated 12 miles at an 8:30 to 9:00 pace, and I averaged 8:33. In the base building phase, we concentrate mostly on building mileage, and don't really worry about the pace - that comes in the sharpening phase (though I simply refuse to slow down to the extent that the RRCA recommends and have cheated on my pace ranges accordingly). The plan calls for me to run 6 days a week (Fridays are rest days), with long run progressions on Saturday and alternating short to medium distance runs midweek at varying paces (I hit the short 4 mile runs harder than the longer ones). I will add in cross training (yoga, weights, core and the bike trainer) on hard run days as I see fit.
I put a similar plan together for Clea (my regular running buddy), who is also running San Antonio and shooting for a 3:20. Again I cheated and made all of our weekend runs the same distance and pace (it's so much easier to do those 20+ milers when you have somebody to run with), and left in our fun Sunday morning Danish runs (can I build treats from a bakery into a training plan?).
I'm in two minds about whether or not to publish my weekly training plan/log on the blog. I did it for White Rock last year, and it worked pretty well for me. What do you think - anyone interested in seeing how many runs I skip, or reading my sarcastic rants, moans and curses about Texas heat and humidity?
Though actually it's more rock and roll than country, because today saw the start of my training plan for November's San Antonio Rock & Roll marathon. It is my goal race for this year, and my lofty aim is to try and run a sub-3 hour marathon - that equates to roughly a 6:50 average pace. A pipe dream perhaps, but if you're going to set a goal you may as well aim high. The plan I designed is partly based on the concepts I learned at the RRCA coaching class, and partly on things I know to have worked for me in the past. It is a 23 week schedule, split into three phases - 13 weeks of base building, 7 weeks of sharpening and 3 weeks of tapering that takes me up to race day.
I have given myself a specific pace range for every run from now until November. This morning my schedule dictated 12 miles at an 8:30 to 9:00 pace, and I averaged 8:33. In the base building phase, we concentrate mostly on building mileage, and don't really worry about the pace - that comes in the sharpening phase (though I simply refuse to slow down to the extent that the RRCA recommends and have cheated on my pace ranges accordingly). The plan calls for me to run 6 days a week (Fridays are rest days), with long run progressions on Saturday and alternating short to medium distance runs midweek at varying paces (I hit the short 4 mile runs harder than the longer ones). I will add in cross training (yoga, weights, core and the bike trainer) on hard run days as I see fit.
I put a similar plan together for Clea (my regular running buddy), who is also running San Antonio and shooting for a 3:20. Again I cheated and made all of our weekend runs the same distance and pace (it's so much easier to do those 20+ milers when you have somebody to run with), and left in our fun Sunday morning Danish runs (can I build treats from a bakery into a training plan?).
I'm in two minds about whether or not to publish my weekly training plan/log on the blog. I did it for White Rock last year, and it worked pretty well for me. What do you think - anyone interested in seeing how many runs I skip, or reading my sarcastic rants, moans and curses about Texas heat and humidity?