Monday, May 05, 2008

Plan

May 2008

WEEK 11

Mon 11 35 MIN RR 5:19 to 5:38 per K
Tue 12 10K @ MARA PACE sub 4:30 per K
Wed 13 1HR 30 MIN 4:50 - 5:27 per K
Thu 14 3 X 3K sub 4mins per K 90sec rest between efforts
Fri 15 35 MIN RR 5:19 to 5:38 per K
Sat 16 1.5K X 4 6:30 per 1.5K 60sec rest between efforts
Sun 17 2HRS 30 MIN 4:50 - 5:27 per K

week total about 90kms

The above is the 1st week of an 11 week marathon plan that will take me to the Townsville Marathon. I want to basically repeat this plan for the first 4 weeks, in
the 5th week cut back on the speedwork and mileage a little just to give the body a little rest. For the last weeks until the taper go back to following the same basic pattern. The only things I think I will change are the speed at which I do my fast runs, I want to run them at the paces recommended for those capable of a sub 3 hour marathon and I want to increase the Tuesday marathon pace run slowly each week so as by 4 weeks out I'm running close to 30kms @ marathon pace.

So what do you think about this? I will be busy with work but I'm going to try very hard not to miss any planned sessions as I know that even a bad plan done with consistency is going to work better than a good plan done sporadically.

I've had professional advice about strength training and diet that I will implement as well because a couple of weeks ago I had a fitness test and was found lacking in many areas. This came as I bit of a shock as I'd considered myself a pretty healthy specimen. For example, I was told that my body fat % was 23. That is mainly on my love handles. Now that's not what it should be if I want to run sub 3 hour marathon.

Still it does give me some hope cause if I'm able to get all the numbers down or in place then it just may be possible to run some times that I can't even imagine yet.

Anyway, any advice on these topics by you would be much appreciated.

And I'd like to apologize for the last karaoke post. I know it was a bit of a disaster, but if I was going to butcher a song it's better to do it to that song than to a good one, don't you agree?

10 comments:

  1. Hi Scott, I have only one comment on you program. It is based solely on my own observations. I think it is important that, while doing the long run on a duration basis and not a distance basis, you be mindful that you need to build to at least 34K in your long runs. Sometimes with duration based runs, because they are not run at marathon pace, the requires distance isn't achieved.

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  2. That's a good point. Actually I always do my long runs just by time and now that you mention it I guess more than a few of them have been done under the kms I should have been doing simply cause I was focused just on the time. I'll watch out for that.

    Thanks Eddie.

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  3. The 3 x 3k at sub 4 sounds scary! But gees, if you can nail that then you must be in with a shot.

    So no rest days. I'm a bit of a fan of that. For me the easy recovery runs rather than a day off seemed to sort out niggles and tightness.

    PS I hope you aren't rubbishing the spunky David Cassidy.

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  4. Thanks, Tesso

    I got the idea of no rest days but just short easy recovery days from Lulu's old man. But I haven't tried it yet. I might work for me, it certainly hasn't hurt Mr. Lulu.

    As for rubbishing David C, never!

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  5. From your recent Half Marathon performance (3:57 pace), it seems that speed wise you are in good shape. From the your recent Marathon performance, it would seem you are a bit short on endurance to get the full 42k.

    Given that, I would be less inclined to have the two speed sessions and replace one with a more endurance type session eg 75- 90 minute upper aerobic run.

    You don't mention what your Marathon goal is but I recognize those Easy run paces from McMillian as being the ones for a 3:10 but it seems you want to do your speedwork at levels required for a sub 3 ???.

    I think that the MP runs are a good idea but would be wary of taking them up to 30k and still doing so many other quality sessions in a week. We are not all Eagles!

    And I agree with Rob that building up to a couple of 35k long slow runs would help.

    Whatever you decide, you must be prepared to listen to your body and ease back if necessary. Good luck.

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  6. Hey Scott, I think that the plan looks good. One thing that I learnt the hard way in Canberra was that being able to run 32km @ marathon pace = crash and burn at 35 km unless you have a good endurance base. I'm pretty sure you would have a good base, but just thought I'd bring it up. The 1.5 hr run mid week would also help towards this. (I'm about to institute that sort of mid week run myself).

    I reckon the 3 x 3 km session will be a killer with only 90 seconds break (my nemesis training session is 3 x 1.6 km @ 3:47 with 90 seconds rest).

    Good luck, can't wait to see how it turns out!

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  7. As they say in the classics, any consistent training plan will get results.

    My thoughts are similar to those of Robert Song. You are well endowed with speed (hugely more than 3" worth), so 2 x speed sessions seems overkill.

    Perhaps drop Thurs, so you can have two easier runs after the long run and prior to the marathon pace run. With the mara pace run, I'd tend to make it a progression run (eventually) - 25k or so, starting at 4:30s for the first 5k, with each 5k quicker, down to 4s or a bit under for the last 5k.

    If you are doing the above weekly, the long run could be any old pace, but as Rob said, get it up to the distance where the body switches to fat-burning.

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  8. Pretty much echo what Robert Song and Ewen said. I do sense a a bit of cramming in there and as Robert Song says, you kind of run the risk of injury trying to put too much quality into the week when combining it with high mileage. Not in one week, but after several weeks of it. But overall it is not too bad a plan, if just a little risky.

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  9. If you are failing to plan then you are planning to fail.

    Any plan is better than no plan.

    Run on.

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  10. More intriguing bolding.
    What's going on?

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