Trevor wrote on 12 January 2023:
Week one of the 16-week training cycle ended on the 8th. I am on Jenny Bushell’s group beginners’ plan, but as I have already run 9 marathons, the instructions I have is that I can make the scheduled long runs longer if I want! I signed up for a beginner’s plan because when I was first learning Spanish, I spent a couple of years trying different methods and ended up being able to say things like: “I am sorry, but I don’t have a carpet on my bed.” I decided to do a beginner’s course from scratch to fill in what I ‘d never learned properly or had forgotten. I now still get carpet and pillow confused, but remember blanket because as one exasperated Spanish teacher once said: “Why did Jacque Cousteau make a documentary about a manta ray? Manta, blanket, a fish that looks like a blanket. It’s blatantly obvious! This is easy Spanish!”
What is blatantly obvious for most runners for most distances, is that a plan needs to be followed if you want to be successful and/or not injure yourself. After my knee injury in April 2021, the way back to running later that year was by following a ‘couch to 5k’ programme: which was as demanding as any running plan I have done. It forced me to do things very gradually. After I did that, I did a 10k plan, and eight months after the injury ran a 10k race. I was six minutes off my pre-injury time; but convinced myself that I could do the Manchester Marathon in April 2022. I completed the race, but I wasn’t ready because I picked up other injuries along the way. Basically, I wasn’t strong enough. Chicago in October 2022 was better, despite the long runs being done at odd hours of the day or aborted because of the late summer heat. I still wasn’t as strong as I needed to be; or had been at Amsterdam in 2019.
With a Spring marathon, cold and wet weather and (until late February) short days are the main limiting factors to balance with work and other commitments. I am fortunate (or unfortunate) in having a job where I work almost completely from home. That gives me more flexibility than most runners, but it still requires a lot of planning to fit in the required running sessions, as well as the strength work…and rest.
The plan I am on involves running 4 times per week. The extra guidance for me is that as I am not really a beginner, I can go to five sessions some weeks, or increase the lengths of the long runs earlier in the programme. The shape of each week is continuous interval sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an easy Parkrun on Saturday, and a long slow run on Sunday. The modification I made on week one was to run a 10k race in Regent’s Park instead of a 10k slow run. A 10k slow would not have been too much for my comfort zone; and I wanted to keep Din in sight, who was using the race to attempt to qualify for the England Masters [F70! Din] 10k in Chester in March. The second long run on 15th is due to be 13k, but I’ll move this up to 16k; then the 16k to 21k.
Just one and half weeks in, the plan has changed my perceptions of training, in that I now look forward to the long runs! The continuous interval (Fartlek) sessions are proving to be more challenging than conventional intervals, as the continual changes of pace do not provide any time to reflect (nor any rest!). Maybe that is the secret of intervals – they make the 20k+ Sunday runs attractive because it’s the one time of the week when the Garmin isn’t barking an order every few minutes. That could become irritating.
Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.