The End of Recovery. The Start of Marathon Training.

It's finally here! I am 18-weeks out from what will be my second marathon and I am staring in the face of a real marathon training plan for the first time. Although Pete Pfitzinger has thrown a small wrench into the spokes of my nicely crafted Excel spreadsheet I am moving forward. More on that little hiccup later, but first the end of my "Recovery" period...

On Saturday I ran a nice easy 6km recovery jog early in the morning as I knew the rest of the day would be packed with activities. Boy was I right! First, coaching Malcolm's baseball game at 9am. Then escorting the entire team for their snacks of hot dogs and such as a courtesy of the league before heading home to prep for our journey downtown to the Blue Jays game (wherein we sat through a Red Sox thrashing, but did get to see an infielder, Mike McCoy, come in to pitch a scoreless 9th marking only the fifth time in team history that a non-pitcher was used in this role, so that was kind of cool).

After the game we walked around downtown and I picked up the second edition of Pete Pfitzinger's book Advanced Marathoning (more foreshadowing to the aforementioned wrench in the spokes). To cap off the day we all went out for a great Indian food dinner at a nice restaurant before dragging our tired butts back home.

On Sunday morning I went out for my last run prior to starting marathon training and just wanted to have fun and not care about pace. It was largely successful as the weather was perfect, cool and still, and I managed to just run the 16.5km on feel. I incorporated some of the now familiar hills in the Beaches, but they were not all that taxing. I remain committed to including hills in my running at the cost of slower average pace for the sake of variety and to improve my leg strength. We'll see how this will work as I attempt to follow what for me will be a challenging training cycle mileage and intensity wise.

And now onto the Plan...

I had mapped out the 18-week training cycle based on the first (and what I thought was the only) edition of Pfizinger's book. When I picked up the second edition (and the second hyperlink!) this weekend I was surprised to see that things were slightly modified! In what way, you may ask? Well,

• 6 Lactate Threshold runs versus 5
• 7 VO2 Max workouts versus 6
• 5 Marathon Specific Pace runs versus 2

And the first run of the first week, which in the first edition is a General Aerobic + Speed session, has been changed to Lactate Threshold. Right out of the gate they have you hauling ass! Well, I made the changes to my training plan with the exception of that first training run. I am keeping that as General Aerobic + Speed, thank you very much.

The weekly mileage remains similar to the original plan, but the intensity definitely goes up a bit. I think this is good and hope that my body can hold up to both. I'm looking forward to getting going, although I must admit a bit of nervousness. How will the next 18-weeks go for me? Will I be successful in staying healthy and fitting everything in while maintaining my commitments to my family and work? Will I be able to do the tough runs while on vacation out of town during the heaviest mileage and intensity portion of the Plan? And what target pace will fall out of all of this for my actual race - something less than stellar, something that gives me a more than legitimate shot at the World Geezer Record, or (and I'm restraining maniacal laughter as I type this) that illusive BQ, whether the 2012 version (3hr15m) or the 2013 (3hr10m)?

It remains to be seen. Let the journey begin!

My Plan for Following a Marathon Training Plan

Last year when I trained for and eventually completed my first marathon I did not follow any specific marathon training plan. Instead, I chose to stay the course that began the previous November and simply added mileage each month while taking a down week after every three weeks of higher mileage. I did throw in the odd 800m repeats at the track, and I can't really remember doing any tempo work at all. Mostly I just ran slow.

It worked because I finished the race. It failed because I bonked at 32K and struggled the rest of the way. What it all amounted to was me going into the marathon without a clear idea of what my proper pace should have been. In retrospect, I ran too aggressively and paid for it. Being sick as a dog the week of the race didn't help so I might have hit that proverbial "Wall" anyway, but ultimately I was not prepared to run at an appropriate pace commensurate with my fitness level and degree of preparation. My hopes of breaking 3h30m were dashed once my right hamstring cramped up and that was that.

This year I am (hopefully) wiser and have more mileage under my belt as I once again stare down the long barrel of an 18-week marathon training cycle that commences on Monday. Although I'd planned since last year to go for a BQ at the Waterfront Marathon this October the fine folks at the BAA decided to throw a wrench into my plans (and the plans of many others I suspect) by lowering the BQ standard by five minutes. I have no delusions of being able to run a 3h10m marathon this year. Even 3h15m is a stretch based on my Half Marathon result this May (typing that into McMillan's Running calculator renders a marathon finishing time of 3h16m40s). But I do know that as I train using the Pete Pfitzinger 18-55 plan my pacing strategy will come into focus and I will (hopefully) parlay that into a successful race. I will define success not solely on my finishing time, but more so by my ability to execute a race strategy so that I am running across the finish line and not hobbling. I know I've said that my goal is to beat this guy's world record, and that is definitely still on, but if my training dictates that I can run faster I will go for it.

The other variables that Pfitzinger does not consider is hill training and weight training. Although all of the weeks have at least two cross-training days, which I plan to use for leg weights, the others are devoted simply to running. I plan on continuing my upper body weights throughout the work week while completing the prescribed runs. Also, as far as hills go, I plan on finding hilly parts of the city to run on during all of the General Aerobic runs and incorporating hills here and there into all or most of the Medium Long and Long runs. Since my target marathon is not hilly I will do the rest on flatter ground and certainly run the Planned Marathon Pace prep runs that way as well. I'm thinking that training on hills will make a flat marathon that much easier and will serve to strengthen both my legs and my lungs.

We'll see how it goes. I am a bit apprehensive despite the fact that I have more than the requisite base mileage under my belt to start this plan. I'll be going from averaging 56km/week for this year up to almost 72km/week for this 18-week period. Yikes! You can tell why I chose the 18-55 plan and not the 18-70 plan, that's for sure.

In any case, I look forward to having a true guide for this training cycle which comes from something other than my brain. Before I was just concerned with staying healthy. Now that I have some semblance of fitness and confidence in my body's ability to withstand the mileage I am pleased to take my cues from a running expert, even if this expert just comes in book/online form.