Establishing a new routine.

Antarctica 09th January 2006.

Looking back over old photographs helps me get into the zone when planning ahead and some times I wish that I was still planning the races I've already done.  It's unlikely that I'll ever return to these places because I believe that some experiences should be remembered and not repeated as the next time might not be the same.  Having said that I still might repeat some of the races if the opportunity arises but I won't purposely try to make that happen as there's still so much to do.

My recent injury seems to have cleared up and the in the past week I've managed to run just over 150 Km with 12.5 hrs of training.  This was made of of lunchtime Tempo runs coupled with evening Recovery runs and the occasional Steady run as my commute home from work.  My weekend was as usual with a long run of just under 40K on Sunday.  

I'll follow this same routine for the next two weeks to see if it fits around my life schedule without having to make too many sacrifices and then I'll try increase the volume by starting my weekend runs earlier and maybe adding in the occasional run before work.  I'm guessing this will bring my training time close to 15-16 hrs and when that gets comfortable I'll start to run it faster which of course will increase the distance.

The best training plan is one that fits around your life rather than trying to fit your life around the training.  When sacrifices need to be made the first thing I give up is sleep and that can be made easier by going to bed earlier.

On the road again

As planned, last week was an easy week with a slight increase in duration from the week before to ease myself back into a regular routine without over doing it.  I included a few cycling days using my commuting time to cross train and make the most of my free time or maybe it was creating training time?  My week went a little bit like this:

Monday

Easy Run over Hilly Course: 6K

Tuesday

Cycle to/from work: 38K

Easy Run: 10K

Wednesday

Cycle to/from work: 38K

Steady Run: 12.8K

Thursday

Cycle to/from work: 38K

Friday

Steady Run work/home 17.6K

Saturday

Running Drills 2K

Sunday

5K Race in Lucan 5K  (18min45sec)

Total for Week: 58K Running & 114K Cycling

The best training plan is one that fits around your life rather than trying to fit your life around the training plan! During last week all my cross training was done during my commuting time and my run home on Friday which took 1hr 22min was also a commute which got me home 30mins later than usual but for that extra 30 mins I managed an 11 mile run.  My steady pace 8 miler on Wednesday was done while my kids were at Kick boxing, the easy run on Tuesday was my way of getting to an athletics competition the kids were competing in and the running drills on Saturday were done with my daughter .  How do I find the time to train?

Dublin Marathon 09

I'm still taking it kind of easy and gradually easing myself back into a training routine with my next definite plan for this year being a sub 3hr Marathon in the Dublin City Marathon this coming October.  Training should be a bit easier this year now that I have some company for the bulk of my training runs as there's a few lads from the club (Le Cheile A.C) training for the same goal.

Training proper will start on Monday 22nd June which will leave 18 weeks to prepare for race day and between now and then I'm training on average every second day.  I've prepared a blank template which includes a list of races and goal finishing times which we will use to measure our progress and between the group we will work out a plan that will suit us all as much as possible.

The best training plan is one that fits around your life rather than trying to fit your life around the training and listing key races in advance can help avoid possible conflicts of interest.

My finishing time for Dublin last year was 3hr 00min 30sec and because I've kept a detailed diary i'll be able to compare my progress this year with my training results from last year.

So far this week I've ran 3 times which included a 13 mile run with Tony today at 7:30 min mile pace.  When training alone I use my Heart Rate to determine effort but the compromise when training as a group is to use a pace thats comfortable for all involved.