This month, I'm taking a hard look at my training plan. I'm still tweaking it here and there, so comments or suggestions are always welcome. I'm also still thinking about signing up for the training program through RunnersConnect that I talked about last month. If I do that, then this whole plan will likely go out the window. Which I'm ok with.
But here's what I have so far:
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| Sorry it's so small! |
As you can see, I'm still in the "base training" zone, which I will comfortable continue until the end of March. That's me being cautious about our weather. Who knows how long we'll have subzero temps for?
So I'll officially start training for my half the first week of April. Week 1 of Marathon Training is actually a taper week before the half marathon in June, so maybe that's cheating? Anyway, I think this is an acceptable amount of time to prep me before the Detroit Marathon.
I based most of the Marathon Training Plan off of Hal Higdon's Novice plan. He doesn't really specify workouts in his plans, so I'll likely do fartleks or speed work on Tuesdays, Fridays are hill work outs. Thursdays are "easy" pace days - maybe half marathon pace? Still deciding on that.
One thing I'm worried about is mentally burning out with such a long time to prep. But I know some things for sure:
1. I don't want to run a marathon in summer heat, so bumping up the time table is not an option.
2. I don't want to train during our winter (aka all on a treadmill), so doing a spring marathon is out for now.
3. If the timetable were shorter, I would probably be freaking out.
So...weeks and months of training is where I am at.
What do you think of my training plan? What are you training for?
Come link up and tell us about it!
I totally hear you on the long training plan giving you time to burn out. I'm currently planning for two spring half marathons and a full (my first) in November. That's a looooong time to worry! So I'm trying to avoid it all by not even thinking about the full until after the second half. Not sure yet if that's a good way to go or not ;) Not knowing anything about marathon training yet I have no frame of reference, but your training plan looks great to me! Good luck! Can't wait to read about your progress. Thanks for linking up!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Part of it still doesn't feel real because I'm still not really "training" for the marathon, even though I'm keeping up my base mileage. I want April to be here now - for more reasons than one!
DeleteThis looks perfect to me! Seriously, that is almost exactly what my first marathon training plan looked like. I had base training (coming back from a month-long hiatus due to injury), triathlon training, training for a half that was about 3.5 months out from my full, and from there I transitioned to full marathon training.
ReplyDeleteI worried about burning out having that long to train too, but it ended up being perfect for me and if I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing. I think breaking it up into different parts was a huge help. Even though I had the marathon in the back of my mind that entire 6 or 7 months, it wasn't like that was the ONLY thing I had to think about. I had lots of other races and benchmarks to look forward to and that made it so much more enjoyable!
Best of luck! I can't wait to see how it goes!
Thanks! It's good to know that someone else has done a similar plan successfully!
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