2013 Goal – Complete a full marathon. I selected the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach on March 17th to be my first full marathon.
I have been using a training program I found on RunKeeper. It is a 16 week program that has me running Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I set my goal time of sub 3:45. Below is the summary of the plan. This section will describe about my progress.
This marathon plan is designed for the intermediate runner looking to finish under 3:45. This plan assumes you can run 45 miles per week. The program is based around one basic principle: for success at the marathon distance, you need to training specifically for the physiological demands of the race. In the marathon, this means three things: 1) increasing your fitness so that you can decrease your marathon pace and make it more comfortable; 2) teaching your body how to burn fat as a fuel source as opposed to carbohydrates; and 3) simulating the fatigue you’ll experience the last 10k without getting hurt or becoming too tired in training. To accomplish these 3 goals, this plan will employ faster paced tempo runs that are often broken into shorter, but faster intervals. These shorter intervals allow you to run faster, thereby working on your speed and mechanics, while maintaining an effort that develops your aerobic system. To encourage your body to use fat as an energy source and to simulate the fatigue at the end of the race, this program breaks up the long runs over the weekend into two moderately fast paced runs. Long and slow 22 milers will breakdown the muscles and will completely exhaust you, which will lead to a significant delay in recovery. In addition, running for longer than 3 hours and 30 minutes can significantly increase the chance of injury and doesn’t produce significant physiological adaptations. Instead, this program places runs on both weekend days, which will allow you to carry the fatigue of Saturday’s run into Sunday, which will simulate the latter stages of the marathon without having to run 20 miles first. However, in this plan, you won’t be so fatigued from Saturday that you can’t run fast at the end of the long run on Sunday, which will teach you how to burn fat while running marathon pace. This program has two 18-milers and one 20-miler. All slow easy runs should be completed at 9:10 to 9:40 pace or slower if you are tired.
