Well I’m happy to report that I feel much less like death today, although I’m still exhausted. As you can probably guess, no run happened last night. What did happen was I put on my pajamas the second I walked in the door at 5 pm, got in my bed, ate some taco bell, and didn’t move for the rest of the night. It was awesome, although the house still looks like a bomb exploded and there are remains of food everywhere; I’m hoping to take care of some cleaning tonight.
Anyway, since Cherry Blossom training was supposed to start yesterday, let’s talk about the training plan. As I mentioned last week, I signed up for the virtual training plan so my runs are emailed to me every day. Here’s what I received on Monday, for the first week of training.
(click to view larger)
With the specific descriptions for Monday and Tuesday’s workout being this:
January 24, 2011
- Distance: 4-6 miles
- Goal: Easy conversational running for the entire distance
- Tip #1: Go easy today. Tomorrow will be your first speed session. Your training pace on an easy day should be approximately 90 seconds slower than your current 10K race pace or at 60-70% of maximum heart rate.
January 25, 2011
- Distance: 4-6 miles
- Goal: Include 6 hill repeats
- Tip: Run at least a mile warm up before starting the hills. Find a moderate hill approximately 200-400 meters long. Try to surge up the hill keeping your arms relaxed. Jog down the hill and repeat. If running the workout on a treadmill, adjust the treadmill to 2.5 or 3.0. After completing the workout, run at least a one-mile cool down. (www.potomacriverrunning.com)
Now, maybe running 6 days a week works for some people, but I know my body and with my history of IT band troubles, there’s no way I’d make it through more than two weeks of that training plan before I was sidelined again. Also, when I trained for my half I think my longest weekly mileage was around 30 or so miles; you’re running that much in the first week of training with this plan. So, what do you guys think? Should I scrap this plan all together and make my own, or mess with this one cutting out running days and subbing cross training. Ready, set, discuss.
Either way, tonight’s run will not be a hill workout. It will most like be 4ish easy miles at around a 9:40 pace while I sweat my ass off on the treadmill. Fun times! Anywho, last night as I was laying in bed reading shit on my computer, I stumbled across some comics on The Oatmeal. This one particularly made me laugh my ass off because as I was reading it, my cat was sitting next to me, alternating between meowing, attempting to lay across my chest, and just staring at me. Obviously I was sucked in for hours.
Alright I’m out of here, seriously though, how do we feel about this training plan?
Filed under: Daily | Tagged: cherry blossom, comics, racing, running, the oatmeal, training plan |
My Verbal Vomit 
Eh, it sounds like you’re planning on scrapping most of this plan anyway, so you might as well just create your own. Thirty miles in the first week alone?! That seems excessive to me for just a half!
Yeah, I don’t know where they came up with this haha, but 30 miles to start is a lot for me.
Uh oh– my first comment disappeared?
It’s a ten mile race, right? Honestly, without seeing the rest of the weeks that lie ahead, my gut reaction is to say scrap it. If you’re at 30-40 MPW now, I can only assume it’s going to climb up to 50+, which sounds like more than you want to do.
Alternately, if you wanted to run 4 days a week, you could just swap one of the easy runs for an easy elliptical, and one of the hard runs for a hard elliptical, I guess. I feel like there’s probably a better plan out there for you, though. 🙂
Yup, 10 miler. That’s my initial thought too, thanks for the advice!
I also could not imagine running 6 days a week. I always tweak training plans so that I’m only running 3-4 days and incorporating cross training. It works really well for me.
I can’t run six days a week either. I’m shooting for three or four days now, plus I added one more day of strength work. But I like the little 4-6 milers, that seems reasonable.
Yeah I like 3-4 days of running. I agree though 4-6 miles during the week is a nice distance.
Haha that comic was funny. 🙂 is it weird that my dog is the same way? I swear she thinks she’s a cat.
6 days a week of running is just asking for injury! I couldn’t do it either.
Hey sometimes dogs just want attention too!
Here’s what I think about that training plan. YEAH RIGHT. Who is this supposed to be for? A Kenyan?
Scrap it and make your own.
Haha, this comment made me laugh.
Ah! I love the oatmeal! And thanks to them, I know that I’d survive less than 30 seconds with a velociraptor (vital information obviously).
I think maybe you should consider scrapping it. Because otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time reworking it into something completely different anyways. Because yeah… I’m with you- I max out at 3 or 4 nights of solid runs a week.
Hahaha I didn’t see that one! I’ll have to look for it.
I’ve never trained before but every plan I’ve ever seen has no more than 4 runs per week. And most of them are short ones. Don’t do something that’s gonna piss off you and your IT band!
Wow, there are SO many running days on that schedule! Sounds like a recipe for injury. I think you should definitely scrap it and make your own rather than editing that one. You know what works for you, so you might as well tailor a training plan to what will work best and keep you injury free!
I just did a bunch of research on how many runs to incorporate in training for a few goals I have too. I have to say, 6 days a week of running is a LOT of running! I would say scrap that, maybe run 3-4 times (a tempo, a long run, and a speed session) and then be sure to do 1-2 of cross training and/or yoga to give your legs (specifically it bands) a break! 🙂
Yeah I normally like to keep it to 3-4 runs a week. Any more than that and I burn out/get hurt.
What Shelby said. Use it as a guideline. If you’re not looking to break records, then don’t get yourself into a tizzy. There are other training plans out there that might be more in line with your goals and desire to run.
Hey!
I actually went to JMU and ran the 10 mile two years ago and lets just say training while at JMU was near to impossible and i completed it! haha I definitely didnt run that much during the week and just made sure to do my normal workouts and add in some elliptical and other things here and there. Its a fun race and definitely no need to stress too much about it!
Go Dukes! Haha, too funny! Yeah my first race ever was a 10 miler, and I’ve done a half since then, I really like the 10 mile distance. I just have a time goal in mind, hence the specific training plans.
Um… I’m really confused by that plan. Seems like WAY too much. I’d definitely trim it down or make a new plan. 4 days of running a week is usually even too much for me.
Right? I’m not an elite runner, haha.
I say to make one for yourself – you know your body and your capability – you can build it off of this one but adjust it for you!
Make your own. You know yourself best and what works for you.
and omg, taco bell sounds SO good right now!
It was amazing. I don’t care if it’s not real beef. whatevs.
Way too much running. I think you will definitely get burnt out. I would look up other 10 mile race training plans.
My dog vs. the internet is the same thing!
Yeah, that was my initial thought too. We’ll see what I come up with now.