My Philosophy

"Don't tell me the sky's the limit when we have footsteps on the moon!"

Friday 14 October 2011

Marathon Mini Series: Training Plan

I'm under no illusions that my marathon training will be difficult, one of the most difficult challenges I've ever taken. It will require a lot of time and training during the winter, which in Munich will require a lot of motivation. From last week when I decided to run it I have 25 weeks in order to train up to the 26.2 miles, so this is the training program I have designed:



The important column is the one on the far right, my long Sunday runs. They need to build up steadily but not so fast that I overtrain and burn out. I will build up to 22 or 23 miles 3 weeks before the race, and then go down so I have plenty of recovery time and I am in top condition for the race.

Tuesdays and Fridays will be my recovery runs. As strange as it sounds you need to run to recover so you can do more running... These are done at a slow pace (60-65% max heart rate) and allow waste products from previous running sessions to be flushed out, meaning you are in better condition than you would be without it. I have noted that I will increase the length of these recovery runs slightly, but I may just keep it at 3 miles, or even a set time limit. We'll see. As this is my first marathon I will be taking the advice of regular marathon runners and trainers.

Thursday I have slightly longer runs planned, which depending on how I feel I may make these faster than I would normally run the Sunday run, or if I need another recovery then I'll make it an easy run.

Cross training is intended to me something other than running, but still improves fitness and increases your general running performance. For me this is of course, Kettlebells! You'd be amazed how much swinging a heavy metal ball between your legs improves your performance as a runner.


The number of miles I need to run is staggering, I've just added all runs from each day and EVEN BEFORE THE MARATHON I will be running 651 miles! Eek.

Well as I'm writing this I feel the need for a recovery run, and would you know it's Friday! Off I go then :)

Viel Spaß homies!

3 comments:

  1. I recognize that from somewhere ;-)

    Did an 8-mile yesterday, superb run it was!

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  2. I saw mate, well done! My 9- miler was tough, I need to do it a bit slower next time maybe. My training plan is similar to the one you sent in the email but I adapted it. I may even have 2 days of kettlebelling instead of 1 ( when I have 2 hands to use again! )

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  3. My pace is obviously very different to yours but yeah take it a bit easier. I could have gone on for 1-2 miles longer if I had to I think. Felt really good!

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