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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Updated Marathon Plan

Howdy y'all! So . . . in case you couldn't tell from my lack of posts and comments lately, I've been busy. Super busy. Between my four soccer leagues, nursing some insignificant but nagging injuries, cleaning out/packing up the apartment, preparing for upcoming travel/weddings, and working more hours than I might like to . . . I've become one seriously over-extended chica. Thus, the four-running-days-per-week SmartCoach schedule just hasn't been cutting it. I'm pretty sure with everything I've got going on, it's not actually possible to fit all of my scheduled runs in. And sadly, I think this reality has led me to fall into an "all or nothing" mentality with regards to my training. I started out in the "all" category, doing anything and everything to squeeze in training runs; but over the past couple of weeks, I've been seriously pushing the limits of "nothing"--so much so that I actually skipped my long run last weekend. Now, in all fairness, it WAS a fall-back week, and I was still in quite a bit of pain from my deep thigh bruise . . . but seriously. It's time to get my a$$ in gear if I'm going to run this marathon.

I figured the best bet at this point is to switch to a more cross-training friendly program, considering I AM playing soccer four nights a week. Thus, I think I'm going to (more or less) switch over to the FIRST plan for the next eleven weeks. I just feel like decreasing the number of days per week I run and making it so that every run "counts" would help me to re-focus a bit. I also think that, given my current situation, this plan is much more feasible. It's hotter than Hades out these days, and considering the two week-day runs in FIRST are a) speed workouts and b) tempo runs--which I like to do on the treadmill--I can squeeze these in at lunch or after work on the days that I don't have soccer. So yay!

Okay, I should probably get back to working, but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive and that I have this new magical plan that's going to get me back on track with my training.

2 comments:

Alissa said...

Ohh I will be interested to see how you like FIRST. I had to modify it - did you notice the 5 (!) 20 milers it calls for??? Even in the best conditions (ie not 110 and humid!) I couldn't do 5 20 milers. I agree with you that speedwork and tempo runs are nice to do on the treadmill because you just set the numbers and run. It does keep it from getting boring. Good luck!

Meg said...

The FIRST plan seems to be really popular. I bet you could substitute an hour of soccer for a 6 mile run or something, even speed work because you have intermittent sprints. Good luck!