Well I have finally put together my Stirling Marathon Training plan for the marathon. It took a lot of reading, re-reading and thinking about the recent Facebook thread about which one was best.
It was important to fit around my work, travel, Christmas, events and just general life. I found that there was many different running plans out there, and summarised well below at Compare Training Plans
This compares all the available types of staple plans out there and rates them 0-5 depending if it suits the type of runner or not for example FIRST Marathon plan is 0 for beginner but 5 for a 3:00-4:00. This was a great tool to compare like for like, method by method but also what suited my situation best.
It covered a wide variety of plan including Jack Daniels ( which until now I thought was a drink) mentioned in Marathon Spotlight #1 and also Lydiard mentioned in #Marathon Spotlight Special. In future #marathonspotlights there are mentions of Hanson’s marathon method and also Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning.
I was able to plan back from the 29th April, shoehorning in key travel dates, holidays, christmas and events ( Illuminator and Fraserburgh Half). I used the Hal Higdon Intermediate Plan and tailored it along with the Running World’s Ultimate Marathon Plan for sub 3:45:00 as it seemed I covered the starting criteria best.
A 3:45 marathon is approximately 8:30 per mile. To break 3:45, you should eventually be capable of a sub-1:45 half-marathon (8:00 per mile) and sub-46:00 10K (7:30 per mile). Right now, you should be running at least 25 miles per week, and be able to run for 1:15 non-stop.
I then looked at using the McMillan Calculator and a pace calculator to determine my training paces for each run…something I haven’t been too good at previously.
After re-jigging things around to account for the Metro Aberdeen Reps sessions ( where I will look to complete my own reps but along with the group as its more of a challenge) and also there is a series of head torch runs starting in November on Wednesdays my plan fills in nicely. It even includes a Saturday Parkrun morning run 🙂
So above is the adjusted mileage I aim to complete. I wanted to look at my perceived running miles in graph form to see if I could eliminate training load errors with he combinations of plans and also holiday changes etc. My only concern is the high peak week 18 where mileage is highball then come into a medium taper before the two-week smooth taper into the run itself.
Lastly, I am looking to log runs on both Strava and Final Surge. The latter is great for putting in what the proposed run was versus the actual run …to monitor if you are running recovery runs too quickly or too slow on tempo runs to really ensure training is specific to need. It also is compatible with your phone so don’t need to log in.
Well, I hope the running is as good fun as the planning….first run starts tonight.
Thanks for reading. As always if any questions please don’t hesitate to comment or contact me. Also if you notice any glaring errors in my programme please don’t hesitate to correct my ways 🙂
Run Long and Prosper
James
SPEAR:RUN