My Beat The Blerch Training Plan

Back to work and I am finding that without a plan, getting in my 5 days a week of exercise is hard.  So,
it's time to come up with an actual plan to train for the Beat the Blerch 1/2 Marathon Trail Run in September.

I have not written down a training plan in a long time and boy does it look daunting. The hardest step though is just deciding to do it. To run. Then comes choosing a goal and making a plan.

So, here's how I plan to tackle each week:

• 3 runs (1 Speed, 1 Tempo, and 1 Long)
• 2 swims
• Strength Training (various exercises to improve core muscles and supporting muscles)

Here it is my plan if you want to download it:

• Microsoft Excel

So, how did I come up with this plan?

I go and run a 5-K as fast as I can to set a baseline to use for figuring out my training and race pace. Your 5-K (or any race distance) result can be extrapolated to other race distances and used to figure out training paces. This needs to be done first.

Then I map out the days from the training start date to the race day. I then label each week from 1 for race week back to the start week, incrementing as I move back in time from race date to the start date. This way I know how many weeks I have to train for the race.

Then I craft a plan based on the Run Less, Run Faster book by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr, and Ray Moss. The plan is called FIRST (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training). The 5-K time is based on a personal best I ran recently to set a baseline for training. The other paces (short tempo, mid tempo, etc) are in minutes/mile and are derived from the book.