Introduction 2: The Plan

Last time we learned: I am training for a marathon, because wtf.

This time we learn: how do I think I'm training for this marathon, exactly?

It is a given that I am a blog-reading junkie, and in particular I'm addicted to the running blogs of a particular, very particular type: 25-35 year old upper-middle class women, sub-4 hour marathon runners, usually craft beer drinkers, either on the all-vegan or all-candy diet, fairly scatterbrained writers, incorrigible selfie-takers, sponsored by makers of specialty electrolyte drinks and running bras with 27 ipod pockets, wearers of rundies, appreciators of ryan gosling, etc. If you have been to the right bits of the internet you know the type. (I also maintain the belief that behind their e-exuberance, each of these women has a carefully guarded personal secret, and I spend my cattiest moments that don't hurt anybody imagining what those secrets are. One of them eats laundry detergent like that person on Intervention! One of them has invented her husband! One of them huffs protein powder and eats her own goldfish! But this is not strictly speaking relevant/normal, so moving on.)

... I also read a lot of other kinds of running blogs -- trail running blogs, running magazine blogs, running company blogs, relay runner blogs, track and field blogs, ultramarathon blogs, even triathlon blogs if i need a quick fix -- and the point is that long, long before I made the bloody minded decision to run a marathon, I had a lot of ideas about training plans.

My requirements of a marathon training plan were two-fold: I wanted to run as few times a week as possible, and I wanted a plan that for whatever reason convinced me I would have trained enough on the day of. Perhaps these sound antithetical? The ultimate issue is this: I have found that running most days a week doesn't make my joints happy. I can run two days in a row, but more is often bad news (I could probably run half an hour easy every day but That's not the goal right now.) What I like to do normally is exercise 6 days a week unless absolutely impossible (i.e. ill) BUT, only run three times a week. Sometimes only two -- even in the depths of winter, I can usually manage to run at least once a week outside through the ice-sleet wastelands or whatever, and then another day on the treadmill. But ideal is three days a week. Thus: when I came across the Run Less, Train Better, Be More Awesome Faster or whatever it's called -- this FIRST plan, in the original Runner's World version, I decided it would be my guide.

This 2005 version of the plan (apparently simplified from their superdeluxe book-buying version) goes like this: for 16 weeks, you run three times each week, including a speed workout, a tempo run and a long run. The speed work is always about 5k worth of running, but it's HARD: you do repeats of between 400 and 1600 meters (roughly meaning a 1/4 mile to a mile) and each one you do faster or considerably faster than your 10k pace. so, when you're doing 400 meter repeats, you're kinda sprinting. The tempo run is anywhere between 3 and 10 miles, and it requires that you move faster than your marathon speed, but not super speedy. And the long runs, which started in week 1 at 10 miles and will include to 20 milers before I'm done, are faster than many training plans suggest, but are your real prep for the idea of running 26.2 miles at a go.

The plan also requires that you crosstrain in some vigorous way twice a week for 45 or so minutes; here I'm in my element. So I figured I'd do my normal cardio something or other two days a week (which right now is swimming, kickboxing class or what my father calls ellipticating), and strength/pilates type stuff two days a week (bearing in mind that one day is real rest day, so i overlap one of the cardio/strength days). And then I also realized I definitely need more core strength than that was maintaining for me, so two extra days a week I add in 20-30 minutes of serious core -- at a minimum i do this with extra planking. Actually I just remembered I have to do a cycle of that core routine tonight (I'm writing from an airplane shuttle bus). And finally there is stretching, which I have traditionally done after every run, but which now I have to do about 10 minutes of every day, and which often ends with just-before-bed foam rolling.

And there is the plan.
And turns out it's really hard.
Argh.

However! I think I have in some way made peace with what's hard about it, and what I'm going to do about it. Hint: it's all about pace.

Next time: how it's going, and what hurts (currently: mostly nothing!)

P.S. I should probably point out right away that I am not, in fact, looking for any advice regarding my training plan. If you know of a better plan -- great! Use it yourself! :)