A Midsummer Night's Run - Training Plan

So with the commitment made to participate in the longest run I've attempted to date, a training plan is a necessity.


I've thought a lot about this in the past few weeks. All of my prior training has been pretty standard - 3 - 4 runs of between 5 - 11 kms plus one long weekend run that progressively increased until just before race day.  For my last race I also tried to include some tempo runs as well.  Also, 95% of my training is done alone. That all worked fine and I've seen my pace & endurance increase but this time I'm going with a different approach.


Heart rate based training.  

Cheer or Boo at your leisure!

Why HR based training?
A couple of reasons:

1. The challenge.  
2. Added variety from my previous training plans.

HR based training is tough.  At least it is for me.  After my first 5 months of running I attempted HR based training and it was hard.  But it did help me & I really had to focus.  Focus on running.  Focus on breathing.  Focus on pace.  I moved away from that when I got back into running after my last pregnancy.


The plan I've decided to use is based on a Garmin Marathon training schedule. (You could search on-line & probably come up with the same plan.) It's only been slightly modified.  The scary part is I'm jumping in mid-plan (week 6) so my long run days are really long run days very quickly!  I may have to tweak this a bit further for those long runs if that ramp is too fast.  But my Half Marathon was only 3 weeks ago so really it shouldn't be a problem.  I have a tendency to talk myself out of continuing those long runs sometimes though so we'll see how it goes!

The one downfall to all this training in the summer is vacation.  See all those highlighted days up there?  Yep, that's my vacation.  3 whole weeks of it.  Training can't stop or I won't make my goal.  The good thing is that our summer vacation is camping, so I'll be in an area where running is possible and there are even some decent trails.


So let's dive in!  This is Week #1!!  Hopefully this all works out and I won't need to be placed in that padded cell I spoke of previously!