Beginning Marathon Training
The Training Program
I have plantar fascitis, a foot and heel injury, which you're not supposed to run on. I've got a special strap I wear while running, as well as orthodics, but it will minimize the days I actually run. I think a schedule of 4 - 5 days of running would be best, but I'm going to limit it to 3 days, with 2 days of cross training. Walt will be running 4 - 5 days a week, and joining me for the long run on Sunday. The long run will be the most important. Here's what I wrote about it in my newsletter:
One of the best ways to improve your running is the once a week long run. This should be done at a slower than normal pace and some walking should be employed. A widely accepted way to do these long runs is to run for 5 minutes and walk for 1 minute. This will save your legs and you will lose nothing in the way of increasing your endurance. If you prefer, you can run 10 minutes and walk 2 minutes. Jeff Galloway is a strong advocate of this.
Throwing in these 1 minute walk breaks will help you recover more quickly, so you will have more spring in your legs for your weekday training. Vary it as you like; run 5, walk 1; run 8, walk 1; run 4, walk 1; etc. Just be certain to include these walk breaks. If you get the same endurance benefits as running continuously, yet you have less injurys and fatique; why would you not want to add these walk breaks.?!
Although I'm going to show you my planned schedule for this month, this schedule should not be etched in stone. If you're sick, or injured, or have plans with your family for that days training session, skip it. You can make it up later and, even if you don't, the rest may be good for you.
A word of warning, though. Don't get into the habit of skipping a training session or cutting it short just because you "don't feel like it". You'll develop bad habits that may come back to haunt you on race day. Even in our 10k races, we generally tend to start out a little fast and run a faster pace than we do in training, due to the race atmosphere. Somewhere along the line, fatique sets in, the body begins to hurt, and your mind tells you to quit. I know.. been there ,,, done that. But I haven't quit yet. These are the times you have to reach into your reserve and gut it out. You can't do that if you've constantly dogged it in training. Quit when you are physically unable to train. Train when you "just don't feel like it".
Here's this month's schedule.
- Tuesday & Thursday ... run 30 - 40 minutes, or 3 - 5 miles
- Wednesday & Saturday ... cross-train 20 - 40 minutes
- Sunday ... long run
- Monday & Friday ... off
We actually started today, November 2, the day of the New York City Marathon. We ran a long run of 6 1/2 miles. The plan is to have that up to 9 miles by the end of this month.
Next month, we'll go over this months training results, and start a schedule for December. See you then.