One of the roommates recently suggested that I post my training plan here. I’ve been a bit hesitant to do it, if only because I change my mind a lot. If I were to post my plan in its entirety today, I’m fairly certain that only about half of it would end up being accurate.
I don’t want this to be true!
The solution? I’m going to start posting my training on a weekly basis. I’m still going off the Runner’s World Smart Coach in order to meet the suggested weekly mileage and paces, but I’ve made some adjustments. For instance, the plan calls for 3 rest days instead of 2, so if there’s more than one 8- or 9-miler during the week, I’ll split one of them into two days of 4 or 5 miles each. I’ll also skip speedwork or a tempo run in favor of another “easy pace” day if there’s a speed series 5K that week. Additionally, the plan peaks at 20 miles for the long-run component, so I’ve tweaked it to include a 22- and a 24-miler. I know a lot of people only go up to 20 miles during marathon training and go on to run great races, but I personally need to actually practice running almost the entire distance in order to be confident that I can keep going for nearly another hour on race day. (Side note to spectators: The last thing we want to hear at mile 20 is “Almost done!” See Buddy the Elf, above.)
Anyway, here’s what I’ve scheduled for this week:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 4 miles @ 9:13
Wednesday: 7-mile tempo run (@ Red Hook track): Warm-up mile, 5 miles @ 7:52, Cool-down mile
Thursday: 7 miles @ 9:13
Friday: 4 miles @ 9:13
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:13
Total: 38 miles
I kind of promise that I’m pretty positive that this is almost exactly how the week will play out.
In other news…
Oh, hey, did you make it this far? Glad you stuck around to find out that I finally made a decision and committed to Chicago! I’m very excited and very anxious to get some redemption on that race course in the form of a sub-4 on October 7. 95 days to go!
Excited you chose a marathon! Chicago will be great
Also, glad to see you are also planning on running a 24 mile training run. I have one on my plan and I sort of secretly flipped out because it just seems like so much and I’ve never heard of anyone running over 22 miles while training. Have you run that long while training before?
I’ve never run more than 22 in training, but I have run 15 miles for the last few half marathons I’ve trained for, which I would highly recommend. It definitely made 13.1 seem less daunting on race day. I did see one marathon training plan that actually went up to 26 miles. I think it would definitely boost my confidence to be able to practice the full distance, but it’s obviously easier said than done. I’m definitely hoping to have a running buddy (or several!) during part of that 24-miler. Who knows, maybe I’ll feel inclined to keep going for another 2.2 that day.
How did you get into Chicago? I really want to run it but the registration is closed, no?
I secured spots for both Chicago and MCM during open registration in the spring. Now that I’ve actually made up my mind to run Chicago, I’m going through the transfer process to sell my MCM bib.
I really like how its “9:13 pace” not 9:10 or 9:15….HA!
love ELF.
Ha, I’m not great about following the exact pace every time, but it goes down a second each week, so I’ve already passed 9:15! It starts to get fuzzy at the end though because it says the last weeks are like 9:00 for 8:00 on race day. We shall see…