The Breakdown

Please forgive the extended silence. I’m student teaching, which means that I’m responsible for the full workload of a first-year teacher. My free time right now is… well, there is no free time. I am still running, though, and as infrequent as my posts may be, I’ll at least keep up with the training updates.

Speaking of which, I want to explain the reasoning behind my regiment. It’s cobbled together out of science, superstition, and circumstantial evidence. At its core is a running maxim I’ve found true over and over again: that the strain on your bones and muscles is affected by the previous two days as much as the current one. It’s when you have several trying days together that you start to feel that heaviness in your muscles, and that familiar ache in your bones (you know what I’m talking about). So to prevent that, I try to keep the average of each three days constant. Since a picture is worth a thousand miles, here is what this week’s training plan looks like:

This plan is meant to let me run alternating long and short days (blue), while still keeping my overall strain (red) somewhat constant. For sanity’s sake, it also gives me Wednesday off (since that’s when my workload is highest) and pushes the higher mileage toward the weekend.

Granted, my regiment lacks the scientific grounding of, say, Hal Higdon’s method. And yet for the past four summers, it’s yielded the fastest, most dramatic improvements and the fewest injuries for me.

Training Plan Revealed!

Okay, it’s not as exciting as all of that.

Those of you who’ve been checking on my mileage will see that my training has me only running 37 miles this week. 37 miles! That’s low mileage for the 5k, let alone marathons. So what’s the plan?

Well, those curious can check out the fancy New WEEKLY TRAINING page. On it you’ll find my weekly goals for the next 16 weeks. these add up to a fitness plan that’ll have me ready to run a record time at Broadstreet, and lay a good base for a later challenge (more on that soon-for now I’ll just keep you in suspense).

In creating this plan, I’ve gone against a lot of training fads. It opposes the low-mileage, speedwork-and-rest-heavy regimens that are popular right now. It’s going to be old school.

I’m using this method because it’s what I always did over the summer, and it’s consistently yielded the best improvements with the least injuries. My college coach liked to ramp mileage up quickly, then keep it steady for long periods of time; these quick ramps, though, place a lot of stress on my poor shins. A heavy runner like me needs to be careful increasing my distance.

That’s why I try to raise my miles steadily week by week, a little at a time. Specifically, less than a 10% increase each week. That’s the magic rule passed down from my high school coach (an inspiration when I started running).

What I’ve outlined is only Phase 1 (doesn’t that sound official?) of my training plan. Phase 1 has a specific way of breaking down mileage, which I will outline shortly.

Anyway, check back often for my progress and what I’m sure will be many revisions to the long-term plan.

Nerd Turtles

Soon I’ll cover in detail my training plan for the next few months. For now, there’s pressing news that I feel the need to share– in every medium possible.

Those of you who have read my Why the turtle? page will know that there’s someone very special in my life. Normally I try to keep personal stuff (at least, that doesn’t relate to running) off this blog. But this is kind of once in a lifetime news.

I’m engaged. I popped the question a few days ago, to a very special someone. We’d been in this place for a long time (that is, the more-than-boyfriend-girlfriend sort of place), and I figured it was about time we make it official. She’s my beautiful nerd turtle, and I can’t think of a better partner for crawling down the long road of life.