Sinking Like a Sunset
Despite a good start, by midweek my training had all but ended. I intended to get out on Thursday but was held up late that afternoon selling our 2-door car and then spent the rest of the evening packing for our short holiday. To make matters worse I brought my running kit with me to Galiano (one of the Gulf Islands) but the only used it for swimming in the ocean… go figure.Therefore, after a four-day weekend consisting of little sleep, copious amounts of food and numerous pints, I intend to make this week count.
[The photos were taken from the deck where we were staying which helps to explain why it was difficult to get out for a run. Ally’s father is a lucky man.]
Training:
Monday: day off (scheduled)
Tuesday: hilly 1:11:02
Wednesday: 33:02 with 6xstrides (1’)
Thursday: day off (unscheduled)
Friday: day off (unscheduled)
Saturday: day off (unscheduled)
Sunday: day off (unscheduled)
2 comments:
hey Michael,
Those are awesome pics. The scenery there must be lovely.
Perhaps the pints can make u carbo load for your coming training week :)
I got a few questions for running. I have the TO Marathon in mid Oct and looking at planning my training schedule.
My key run is a long run on Sat (2-3 hr) and a hill repeats on Wed (1 hr right now, thinking of stretching it to 1.5 hr). I am thinking of adding a tempo run on Mon. The runs on the other days are easy and what not.
My question is....what do you think of this training plan?
I am hesitate on pushing a long run to 3 hr. At the same time i never did hill repeats more than an hour.
My hill repeats are 15 min WU, 30 min hills and 15 min CD. Do you thinking stretching the hills to 60 min is too much? I guess my only concern is making sure I don't go too hard on the hills and keep a steady pace.
Keep in mind that what I’m about to share is my opinion and based solely on experience, AND that everyone you ask will give you a slightly different answer.
At first glance, structuring your week to run a tempo on Monday, hills on Wednesday and a long run on Saturday leaves enough time for recovery (check). Make sure you also play around with your weekly periodization to aid with recovery. Don’t get tricked into thinking that you don’t need recuperation, everyone does sooner or later.
I believe that one aspect of racing a marathon that people tend to overlook is specificity. It’s important to keep in mind both the route and that it is an endurance event. After looking at the course, the first 17k is gradually downhill with the remainder flat (apart from the last mile). With this in mind, how long are you planning on running hills, i.e. how many weeks/months? How are the w/o’s structured, 30” vs. 3” or perhaps just running a rolling route?
Although hills build strength keep in mind that you will plateau and that Toronto is not a hilly course. I’d advise a) doing hills at the beginning with a few sprinkled in at the latter stages or alternating right from the outset, i.e hills one week, with shorter tempo (1k-3k repeats) efforts the next. You might want to have the third week hill & tempo free… an easy week? As for the duration, I think it’s a good idea to do at least one midweek run that is moderately long (building to 1h30).
As for the long run, I’d really try to hit 3h recognizing that the longer you run in training the easier race day will be.
As for Monday, what type of tempo sessions are you planning? If you’re going to mix up the hill sessions with some shorter tempos, I’d try and make the Monday intervals longer. As you get closer to race day (6 weeks out) you might want to consider dropping the Monday session and working some longer tempo pieces into your long run.
Examples you could use are below:
M (long tempo): 2x10’-15’ tempo (2’); 3x2M tempo (2’); 6xM tempo (1’); 8-10x1k tempo (1’); progressive (15’/10’/5’) descending from MP, HMP & 5kP
W (hills/tempo): 5-8x30” hills; 4-6x2’ hill; 5x1k (2’); 3xM (2’); 8-12x1’ (1’) on recovery week; or 2x90” (90”) + 4x1’ (1’) + 4x30” (30”) + 4x15” (15”) again on an easy week.
S (long run): build to at least 2h30; 3xM tempo + 1h easy + 3xM tempo; 2h with 6M MP building to 12M MP
Hope this helps?!
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