The Training Plan

Sorry I'm a little (aka a lot!) delayed in getting all of these posts up, but we've had a bit of an internet outage problem at home.

Now for the training plan. For starters, I'm a planner. Having a plan I can easily follow is crucial to me. I like to have a copy of my plan in my purse at all times and I'll even write down how many miles I need to run each day in my planner so there is no way I forget. Yes, this probably designates me as a control freak, but I like that satisfied feeling I get when I cross out or check off my completed runs. Also, I can be a little groggy when I get up at 5:30am and it's nice to be able to double check how far I need to run quickly. It's a pretty lousy feeling to think you are supposed to 4 miles and when you come back realize you were supposed to run 6. I don't like to feel lousy, so I do a double check before going to bed or right when I get up.

Last year I used Hal Higdon's intermediate 1 marathon training plan, which can be found here. It was a great plan that I really enjoyed. It was straightforward and a good amount of mileage each week. The only thing I found missing was the speedwork that I used to do while training for my half marathons. I realize I probably could have looked at the advanced plans and added them in, but since I didn't really know what I was doing I stuck to the plan like glue.

This year I thought I would look around at different plans since last year I basically picked my plan because it was the first one that came up on my google search and seemed reputable. The plan was great, but this year I wanted to look around a bit more to see what else was out there. Since I still don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to training, I asked some of my running buddies for their suggestions for good plans and Team Hope for the Warriors had some as well for me to peruse. After looking around and comparing plans I decided to go with 18 week intermediate plan by Team Hope for the Warriors. It is pretty similar to a lot of the other plans, but I liked the speedwork component of this plan. The plan is here (for some reason I couldn't get it to load below), and I am looking forward to using it for training. I am sure I will modify it slightly as I go, depending on how my body feels and because things inevitably come up, but we will see how it goes!