Marathon training has begun!
So now that my marathon training has begun for the inaugural Newport marathon I thought I’d post about how its going so far.
The countdown is on!
I’ve never run a marathon before and I’ve also never followed a proper training plan before so its all a new experience for me. I think finding a plan to follow was probably more daunting than the prospect of the race itself!
There are so many plans out there but in the end I settled on the MY ASICS training app. I know there are more in-depth plans out there but the fact that its on an app and has quite a few rest days mixed in really did sell it for me as I’m going to be fitting a lot of my runs in around my shift work so it needs to be a little bit flexible.
How the plan looks
I don’t think it would have been feasible for me to follow a plan that required running 6 days a week, especially considering I have two young girls that I am going to have sacrifice spending time with. Luckily Steph is understanding of my need to run at certain times which is good as its one less thing to worry about.
So, getting started with the app, it requires you to enter your goal time and then asks what time you can run a half marathon in. For me my goal time is 3hr04 and the half marathon time I put in was my PB of 1hr30.09. This apparently gave me a plan for a time of 3hr11. I’m not sure how its calculated that but I’m going to go with it but I will adjust the pacing of some the race pace runs to prepare me for my goal time.
Whether this works of course remains to be seen but regardless of me achieving my goal time, its all a learning curve so any mistakes I make during this training cycle can be put right in the next one.
Be safe, be seen!
I initially thought the plan looked a little easy and light on miles but it starts with a week of preconditioning, 2x 3 mile runs at 9min pace and 2x 5.5 at 9min pace before the 5.5 mile run gets faster.
Views!
I have now completed my second week which has involved 2x build up 5.5 mile runs starting at around 7.30min pace building up to around 6.45min pace and so far so good. I’ve stuck to the plan like a good boy, apart from running the first build up run too quick, and have surprised myself by enjoying the slower runs more than I thought I would.
Fresh & frosty morning run
Moving forward I intend to stick with the plan as best as I can although I do have two half marathons booked in, one of which is tomorrow which means I’ll deviate from the planned 8.5 comfortable miles but that’s ok. The only other deviations I may make are to attend Parkrun occasionally, the Burnham Winter Series 5k races and any slight changes due to family time and work.
Hopefully I will be able post about my training every couple of weeks as I’m sure there will be times when the training and sacrifices get harder and its good to talk!
Feel free to get in contact and let me know what races you’re training for, what plans you’re following and how they are working for you .
