Week 29 Wrapup

The running went well this week. I don't feel any trace of an injury anywhere, just general soreness from the long run on Saturday. I ran 12 miles. That's the longest I've ever run in my life. That's not a big thing by now, though, because every week for a while now I've run the longest I've ever run in my life. This was the first week that I ran for longer than 2 hours, though, and I believe that I've never in my life done any kind of physical activity for two hours straight.

The Shambles asked about my running schedule. For anyone else interested, here's the story: I read this article on Runner's World several weeks ago. In a nutshell, it says that these exercise scientists were getting good results and improved times by cutting people back to 3 days a week, but focusing each of those days on a specific targeted run. I was intrigued by this, because I knew I wouldn't be able to run longer stretches and still fit in 4 or 5 days a week. So, it seemed like a perfect fit for me. (The article also stressed the importance of cross-training on the non-running days, but I pretended I didn't notice that part.)

So, I was planning on constructing some sort of workout plan using that article. A couple of weeks later, though, I discovered that Runner's World had this "Smart Coach" thing on the front page of their website. You enter a recent time, a training distance, and answer a couple of questions about current mileage and training intensity. You click a button and then it spits out a schedule with paces based on the information you gave it. I have no idea what methodology it uses, but I believe it's related to magic.

The first time I tried it, I liked the fact that it spat out a 3-day/week schedule for me. If I had told it I currently do more mileage per week, it would have given me a 4 or 5 day schedule, but at the time, I was only averaging about 15 miles per week. I also liked how it let up a little every fourth week. I ran it a few times to fudge the numbers a bit because I thought the paces it suggested for me were too slow. That was because I was using real race times, and my race times were a lot suckier than what I really could have done at the time I was playing with the schedule. So, I plugged in some different times until I found something that looked like it made sense, then went with it.

I looked for ways to copy and paste the schedule here, and they mostly just didn't work. I've included my best attempt here, but not everything lines up right. To really see it the way they gave it to me, you'd have to go to the Smart Coach site, enter a 4:20 marathon time (my goal if I ever did run a marathon), and tell it you run 16-20 miles and want to increase moderately.

Week Week Starting  Monday Wednesday Saturday Total Weekly Mileage
1 4/20 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 16 miles
  Dist: 3mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Dist: 8mi 
  @10:49 Warm; 3mi@9:13; Cool @10:49 
2 4/27 Easy Run Speedwork Long Run 17 miles
  Dist: 3mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Dist: 9mi 
  @10:49 Warm; 2x1600@8:42 @10:49 
   w/800 jogs; Cool  
3 5/4 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 18 miles
  Dist: 3mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Dist: 10mi 
  @10:49 Warm; 3mi@9:13; Cool @10:49 
4 5/11 Easy Run Easy Run Easy Run 15 miles
  Dist: 5mi Dist: 5mi Dist: 5mi 
  @10:49 @10:49 @10:49 
5 5/18 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 20 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 6mi, inc" Dist: 12mi 
  @10:43 Warm; 4mi@9:13; Cool @10:43 
6 5/25 Easy Run Speedwork Long Run 23 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 7mi, inc" Dist: 14mi 
  @10:43 Warm; 3x1600@8:37 @10:43 
   w/800 jogs; Cool  
7 6/1 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 24 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 6mi, inc" Dist: 16mi 
  @10:43 Warm; 4mi@9:13; Cool @10:43 
8 6/8 Easy Run Easy Run Easy Run 17 miles
  Dist: 6mi Dist: 6mi Dist: 5mi 
  @10:43 @10:43 @10:43 
9 6/15 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 27 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 7mi, inc" Dist: 18mi 
  @10:36 Warm; 5mi@9:12; Cool @10:36 
10 6/22 Easy Run Speedwork Long Run 30 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 8mi, inc" Dist: 20mi 
  @10:36 Warm; 4x1600@8:32 @10:36 
   w/800 jogs; Cool  
11 6/29 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 25 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 7mi, inc" Dist: 16mi 
  @10:36 Warm; 5mi@9:12; Cool @10:36 
12 7/6 Easy Run Easy Run Easy Run 19 miles
  Dist: 7mi Dist: 6mi Dist: 6mi 
  @10:36 @10:36 @10:36 
13 7/13 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 27 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Dist: 20mi 
  @10:30 Warm; 3mi@8:57; Cool @10:30 
14 7/20 Easy Run Speedwork Long Run 22 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 8mi, inc" Dist: 12mi 
  @10:30 Warm; 4x1600@8:27 @10:30 
   w/800 jogs; Cool  
15 7/27 Easy Run Tempo Run Long Run 15 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Dist: 8mi 
  @10:30 Warm; 3mi@8:57; Cool @10:30 
16 8/3 Easy Run Tempo Run Marathon 31 miles
  Dist: 2mi "Dist: 5mi, inc" Race Day 
  @10:49 Warm; 3mi@8:57; Cool  

Since I'm going on a cruise and then to Disney World the first part of June, I'll probably just try to run a total of 15-20 easy miles on the ship that week, then repeat the previous week when I get back. That will add two weeks to the 18 week schedule, which will have me finished with this schedule right around August 23rd or so.