Sunday, 17 June 2012

Marathon training starts this week!!!!!


Saturday 16th June

Just realised last night that this week marks the official beginning of my training for the Dublin marathon. The previous 11 weeks were all about building my base mileage and run a few races. Well I am now up to 52 miles and I have achieved PBs in 4 miles, 5 miles and set and reset PB’s in the half marathon. Don’t how many races I will be doing over the summer but I will probably be doing another one of the Ballycotton series and the Donoughamore 7. Might tackle the Dromcollogher 4 as well. Tempted to run the 15 mile Killarney maxi marathon but not too sure. Correcting leaving certificate papers and trying to scrape together a bit of cash for a holiday will take up both time and money. Anyway I have put together a 20 week training plan based closely on Pfitzingers training schedules. Like all plans it probably will change as I go on but I hope to stick as closely as possible to the spirit of it – namely tempo runs, strides, long medium midweek runs, long slow weekend runs and most crucially marathon pace long runs. The latter element of training is my opinion vital to running a successful marathon but the MP long run has to be done carefully and sparingly. By September I will be running a couple of half marathons with a 3 week taper in October. Hopefully my mileage will peak at 70-72 miles with most of my training in the 50 to 70 mile per week zone. This will be a big challenge for me and my body. I do have the advantage of having time to complete my workouts in the morning and do my work (namely correcting) afterwards and not worry about a long commute to the office or babysitting. I should also really be doing some core workouts on my abs, back and quads but I really don’t like it!!! Then again I could eiter get burned out or injured. Time will tell.

Anyway ran 16 miles this morning. Was up and out the door by 7.05. Ran this as a cross between a long slow run and a medium run with the last 2 miles at marathon pace. In otherwise a moderate relaxed effort with a challenging finish. Did the last 2 miles in 8.00 and 7.57 pace. It means I have done 50 miles this week with a easy recovery jog tomorrow. Have to careful not over stretch it during the long runs. I will have a 16 mile run with 10 miles at MP coming up in next couple of weeks- that will be tough.

16th June – 16 miles in 2hrs16mins at 8.36 pace.  Average HR 148

17th June Easy paced recovery run 3 miles – 38 minutes

Monday  9 miles, Tuesday 8 miles with 4 at 7.14 pace, Wednesday 10 miles, Friday 7 miles, Saturday 16 miles, Sunday 3 miles. Total miles – 53 miles

1 comment:

  1. All the best with the correcting (My Dad did it for years), Oh and the marathon training.

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