Marathon Training Plan

Well, after much research, deliberation and many revisions I think I have my 2011 Chicago Marathon Training plan.  I've gone back and forth between what I thought might be too many hard workouts and what seemed like not enough, now erring slightly on the not enough side choosing to be slightly under-trained but fresh for the marathon rather than over trained, tired and possibly injured.

Runs & Pacing:

Most of my pacing is derived from mcmillanrunning.com's running calculator using my 1:23:30 half marathon time.  For the longer runs heart rate will be a bigger determining factor of pace as my heart rate zone seems to give a slightly faster pace sometimes, and as the summer gets warmer here in Miami, paces might go out the window.  Depending on how the training is going I may switch over to use my 5k time for the Cruise and Speed Interval paces.

Notes about the Plan:

• I've moved my long runs to Saturdays in order to give myself at least 1 weekend night with the possibility of going out (though I'm guessing I'll be pretty tired most weekends.)  There's also a new group at a near by running store doing long runs on Saturdays so I  might have some running partners for some of the runs.

• For the first half of the plan I have easy runs on Thursdays.  This is to give me a chance to occasionally run with the Hash - junk miles (with beer!) but a fun group.  When the weekend miles start getting more serious and requiring more focus, Thursday will become a rest day to prepare for the Friday/Saturday run and easy runs will move to Tuesday.

• There are 4 key workouts in this plan, the two 20 mile fast finish (FF) runs, the 23 miler (which will be slower with Veronica, but on hills in Ithaca) and the 13 mile Marathon Pace run.  Since this is my first marathon build up I've decided to go with only 3 runs of 20+ miles (instead of the 4 I originally had) to make sure I avoid injury and see how I handle the miles.

• Depending on how my legs are feeling, the easy runs on Mondays may occasionally have some marathon pace or tempo pace miles mixed in to get a little more stamina work in the schedule.

• There is a step down week every 3rd week to let the body rest up for the next build up.  This is a Hal Higdon strategy and I've used his long run schedule for the build ups.

My only concern with the plan at this point is that it might be a little easy on the threshold work, with more focus on endurance.  With this being my first Marathon, I won't really have an idea if I'll be able to handle my target pace for 26.2 miles until about 24 miles into the marathon...  Not something I can fix at this point, so I have my schedule, now I just need to stick to it!

Cruise Interval Pyramid

Planned:
400 (90), 800 (3:00), 1200 (4:30), 1600 (6:04), 1200 (4:30), 800 (3:00), 400 (90)
 30 second breaks after 400 & 800's, 1 min after 1200 and 2 min after 1600

Actual:
1 mile w/u
87, 2:58, 4:25, 5:55, 4:28, 2:52, 72
1 mile c/d
Total: 6 miles

Another track workout that perhaps felt too easy.  I was able to focus on keeping the intervals smooth and easy.  Breathing was starting to get a little labored for the 1600 but legs still felt good and pace never felt difficult.  Legs started feeling it slightly during second 1200 and after, but wind was picking up as a storm was coming in and the pace was increasing a little.

At this point I have to be pretty happy at how easy this is feeling.  According to mcmillanrunning.com these are the training paces I should be hitting if I was running a 2:56 marathon but I may have to start upping the difficulty to make sure I'm getting enough out of these workouts since I have limited speed/threshold work during my marathon training plan.

I was worried at the beginning of the workout that temperature was going to be a problem as it was 83, feels like 94 with 83% humidity (and this was down from 94F earlier in the day) But the thunderstorm that blew in helped keep the temperatures moderate (temps droped 5-10 degrees during workout), though the wind added something to the workout.  It would be nice if the weather cooperated all summer!

Marathon Training Resources

I recently published a post on my running blog about some different marathon training resources.  It's not comprehensive by any means, but has most of the sources I've been using to construct my training plan.

Check it out here: http://runnerreborn.blogspot.com/2011/06/marathon-training-resources.html

4x1200 Speed Work

Planned:
4x1200 @ 4:20, 400 jog between each

Actual:
1 mile w/u
4x1200 - 4:13, 4:16, 4:16, 4:15, 400 jogs (~2-2.5 min) between
half mile cool down
Total: 5.25 miles

Last night was the first track workout of my official Chicago Marathon Training (18 weeks!)  I pretty much have my training plan finalized, but only have Speed Intervals or Cruise Intervals defined for my weekly track workouts - no individual workouts planned yet...  So I was very indecisive leading into yesterdays "3 mile SI" especially having just run a terrible 5k Sunday evening.

I finally opted for 4 x 1200 at 4:20 pace or better (pulled from McMillan's Running Calculator).  It was warm (83 +) and humid, but the wind seemed to keep things feeling okay.  The pace seemed quick but pretty easy and the workout went by quickly without much mental struggle at all.  (I guess I should have expected 5:49 pace to seem very easy after going through the first 1200 of the 5k at 4:50 pace).

I've realized I may need to pay more attention to my speed workouts after this one seemed so easy.  Right now my speed fitness is far ahead of my stamina and endurance (not that that's saying much at this point) so basing all my workouts off my half marathon time may not be the best plan, however it should help prevent over training, and if training at these tempos feels easy, my goal marathon time (2:55 - also based on the half time) should be very attainable.  It's also early in the training cycle, so the distances are somewhat low but I may have taken too much time between intervals as well.  Obvious that more refining will be needed, but not a bad start to the training cycle!