am going to stick my neck out here with a big goal in a desperate plea for support, encouragement, and butt kicking (when needed). In 1997, I set my half personal record of 2:33:05. On race day, I was 42 years old and ~240#. On May 18, 2013, I will be 47 years old and as of today, I am 5# below my previous weight. I want to be at or below 200# by 1/15/2013, under 180# on raceday, and I want to run the half marathon in Fargo in 2:11:00, a 10 minute per mile pace.
I have found a 20 week plan that includes hill repeats, interval runs, tempo runs, and escalating runs where you start at recovery pace and finish at race pace by increasing your pace every other mile. It runs from 33 to 58 miles per week, with most weeks in the 40’s. I have laid out my plan by day for 140 days, starting the end of December.
In addition to ramping up my weekly miles from 23 to 33 in December to be ready for the plan, I am also working on adding weights, swimming, and yoga to my schedule. I have never had a regular lifting plan, so I am working through the book Weight Training for Runners and at least one personal trainer session at our gym.
Our gym has yoga classes twice a week and I plan on attending my first class next week. I am also reading Sage Rountree’s book Yoga for Runners. I do need to change my schedule a bit because Thursday’s run is usually not finished by the 6:30PM class time. So I need to think through how I am going to make that work.
I have ordered a pair of shoes designed for running in snow and cold. I will start on January 2nd running hill repeats in a parking garage. And I listened to some suggestions for using a treadmill for some of my interval and tempo work. I am also hoping for an early spring and no flooding so I have a chance to do most of the plan outdoors.
I have a conference during week 17, so I will be trying to figure out how to get my 53 miles in from the Anaheim Marriot. I am checking out routes with google maps, looking for running sites that have routes, and planning on taking my reflective vest. Knowing the normal schedule, I suspect I will have to either go early or late to get the workouts in.
I have learned a new shorthand: 2W6T2C@HMP is a tempo run with a 2 mile warm up, 6 miles at Half-Marathon pace, and 2 miles of cooldown. The interesting ones are the “track day” with distances in meters, kilometers, and miles and recovery breaks in minutes between each segment: 1W,2x1K@HMP,2R,2x1m@10K2R,,2x1K@5K,2R, 1x800,1C. This is 1 mile warm-up, 2 intervals of 1K each at half-marathon pace with 2 minutes recovery, 2 intervals of 1 mile at 10K pace with 2 minutes of recover, 2 intervals of 1K at 5K pace with two minutes of recovery, one interval of 800 meters, and a mile cool-down. Now I just need to remember how to read it in the midst of 50 mile training weeks.
Lastly, the program is 6 days of running each week and I estimate some weeks will be 11 to 12 hours actual running plus all the misc related time for getting out and getting home and showered. I need buy-in from my family for the impact on the schedule and the time I will be able to spend with them. It will impact what we are able to do as a family.
What do I want to accomplish with this? I would like to see if I can get to a sub-four hour marathon by my 50th birthday. This involves getting under a two hour half-marathon by the spring of 2014 and the spring of 2013 is a test on how fast the new me can actually run. I don’t worry about the miles, I worry about the ability to turn my feet over fast enough and the ability to stay injury free while I learn to do that. Can I get to below 1:45 in the half? What would that do for me? Stay tuned.
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