The Four Year Plan

spaceylou

Week Beginning 25 May

Plan this week is:
Monday: swim
Tuesday Pilates Class and Run 30 - 40 min
Wednesday: maybe swim
Thursday swim
Friday: maybe swim and Run 40 min
Weekend: prob go for a long walk at some stage see how I feel about running a third run.

Will be away for conference hence the excessive swimming and no second pilates class.

Today's swim was nice, not my usual pool did 350m all back stroke, felt it a bit in back by the end but at the same time there were lots of breaks as was with mum and she likes to chat! :rolleyes:

spaceylou

Tuesday 26 May

Usual AM Stretches (my new religion) followed by run. Plan was 30 - 40 min easy and have to say felt much more like myself which made me quite happy! Ran 6.4 km in 38 min

Pilates class at lunchtime - lovely class

spaceylou

The rest of the week went something like this:

Wednesday
Drive to conference, sit around all day, eat too much - 45 min walk in evening - think I stretched but not convincingly

Thursday
315 m* swim - all backstroke followed by more sitting around all day and eating too much; also drank too much at official dinner

Friday
sat on my ass all day before driving home and then vegging, energy-less in front of the tv for the night.

Saturday
Stretched in the middle of the day but mostly slept - like really just slept, ate and slept some more.

Sunday
After all the sleeping, thought I'd be awake early so didn't set alarm but still slept until nearly midday! Very unlike me, but obviously I needed it. Some serious stretching and foam rolling...

Total for week - pretty pathetic 6.4 k
Total for month - need to check but with injury and what not it will be low

*one of these odd hotel pools that are 21 m long

spaceylou

New Week; New Month

Here we go...

Monday
Morning stretching routine and foam rolling followed by run. Plan was 45 min so went and did 7.8 k in 46:?? Plan was easy but found pacing really hard for some reason - had to keep doing the 'conversation pace' test and adjust. Wind probably wasn't helping and did not envy all the people headed for the WMM - you'd be frozen hanging around in the pens before the start! Was tired at end of run and happy to be home.

Tuesday
Morning stretching routine.

Pilates class at lunchtime - everything felt stiff and heavy today. Like my muscles have lost all the elasticity and strength they ever had. Still enjoyed the class but was harder than it should be.

Throat sore and headache hovering so maybe have a cold or something coming on

30 - 40 min run planned for tomorrow...

spaceylou

Wednesday

Stretching and running this morning before work. Plan was 30 - 40 min easy run, which in my head means do at least 35 min unless disaster strikes. Wind is seriously starting to annoy me now, grand in some spots and then you turn a corner and wham effort increases ten fold*. In any event completed 5.85 km in 35:49 min. Followed by usual 45 min walk into work after breakfast.

I want to do a 60 min run at the weekend but don't want my long run to be any more than 2/3 of weekly total so I think that means I need to go for a 10 min run tomorrow - hardly seems worth putting on my runners for so short so might make it 20 min.

Head and throat not 100 per cent today but think they are better than yesterday, still tired so early night again I think. Birthday tomorrow - not getting any younger so need the auld beauty sleep! :P


*This may or may not be a huge exaggeration

annapr

You sound like you might be coming down with something so take it easy... don't want to be sick on your birthday

good to see you back running... those conferences are lethal!!

spaceylou

annapr wrote: »

You sound like you might be coming down with something so take it easy... don't want to be sick on your birthday

good to see you back running... those conferences are lethal!!

Thanks Anna, throat a lot better today so think I might be getting over whatever it was...spending the weekend at hotel with lovely spa so lots of relaxing and healthy living should sort me out!

Conferences are definitely a disaster for healthy living - another one at the end of this month but it is in taper week for Waterford half so won't be too bad, I hope.

spaceylou

Been thinking (and avoiding work) about training plans for next few months...

Phase 1: now - Waterford Half (27 June) - slow and steady, gradually increasing - focus on finishing the thing in one piece, ideally without walking and super ideally faster than last year, which was 2hr 23 off inconsistent training.

Phase 2: Waterford Half - Dublin Half in September. Have tweaked the Hal Higdon Novice II plan (see below) and appreciate thoughts. The tweaks were not because I have any great desire to reinvent the wheel but rather because I want to enter the rest of the race series and I have some events/holidays that need to be taken into account. I also want to fit in Pilates and gentle swimming upon advice from my physio and because if I don't I will break - simple as!

Focus for this phase is train consistently; avoid injury; and run <1:59:59.9 in the half in Dublin. Maybe this is not possible, will revise after Waterford but am keeping it there for now.

Phase 3: Sept - Spring 15 - look at speed, enter some 5k races; 10 k races and the like and try improve those times. Maybe ponder the merits of XC although my only memory of running in school was being cold and wet and XC races so we will see :eek:

Phase 4: Spring 15 - start building long runs and endurance with a view to starting, completing and most importantly enjoying DCM16.

Now of course this is all subject to change cause who knows what the future holds but for now that is the loose plan.

annapr

Hey I am no expert but here's my 2 cents...

first of all the sub 2 is definitely achievable, I am the living proof of that... my first half (Sept 2013) was 2:19... Dublin Sept 2014 was 2:01 and down to 1:55 in june 2015. My time frame was a bit longer than yours...but Laura had similar progress, maybe faster.

I think Hal higdon novice plans are great for starting out, but if you really want to make progress, take a look at the HH intermediate half plan and/or the Clearlier plan on the DCM 2014 graduates thread... that would take you right to the Sept half i think, building gradually. The difference is the 2 sessions per week at different paces... with a quick glance at your schedule, you don't seem to feature regular sessions as much, unless I'm mis-reading. I think they really are beneficial... and also make training more interesting.

I'm sure someone more experienced will give you better advice on the specifics, but just sharing what has worked for me, and for Laura too I think.

spaceylou

Thanks for that Anna - I didn't even consider the intermediate plan Didn't think I'd be up to it, although I did first look at the novice I and decided I could do more hence my tweaking of Novice II. I will look at the intermediate tomorrow.

I guess I was thinking the 'race pace' runs suggested on the novice II would be my speed work, but they are not plentiful so I guess you are right about not necessarily seeing a lot of gains with that plan. How I do in Waterford will tell a lot

Bungy Girl

+1 to adding in some pace variety to your week. Strides or short hill sprints can be tagged on to the end of an easy run. Fartlek could be done for a portion of a short - medium run, so the basic structure of your plan need not change. One thing I noticed is that there's no step-back week(s). Hal normally steps back every 3 but you could step-back every 4. It give the body a chance to recover, adapt and consolidate and is a good idea to reduce the risk of injury when you're building mileage.

You're right to see how you get on in Waterford both in the race and in terms of recovery, then perhaps reassess if necessary.

Oh and definitely do XC !! Such mucky fun, you'll love it.

laura_ac3

I said I'd mosy over to here with my reply. Yeah just read Anna's comments there and that of BG about the strides too. Completely agree with Anna about what worked for the two of us. I took 13 mins off my half time in 6 months and I would have never thought I could make such a dent off the PB in such a space of time. Lots of slow easy miles for the base plus those sessions did the trick! How many days are you running - 4? You could do 2 easy shorter (maybe with strides sometimes on one of those), plus your session and then your longer run. Just helps mix it up a bit too.

annapr

oh, one other thing and then I'll shut up ... one of the great things in the Clearlier plan is that the easy runs are based on time targets, not miles... starting at 30mins and working up to 55... this means that you're not fretting about pace or covering x miles early on. It also means that by the end of the plan, anything less than 55 mins feels like a short run!

spaceylou

Thanks for all the advice guys, very much appreciated.

Bungy Girl wrote: »

+1 to adding in some pace variety to your week. Strides or short hill sprints can be tagged on to the end of an easy run. Fartlek could be done for a portion of a short - medium run, so the basic structure of your plan need not change. One thing I noticed is that there's no step-back week(s). Hal normally steps back every 3 but you could step-back every 4. It give the body a chance to recover, adapt and consolidate and is a good idea to reduce the risk of injury when you're building mileage.

You're right to see how you get on in Waterford both in the race and in terms of recovery, then perhaps reassess if necessary.

Oh and definitely do XC !! Such mucky fun, you'll love it.

The HalHigeon Plans don't seem to have a 'step-back' week built in but I do agree that it might be something to consider especially seen as one of my goals is to stay injury free. Should the step-back be with regard to distance or effort or both? Like would dropping a session but keeping the mileage the same be a step-back or should I lower the mileage as well? Obviously, this question is based on me adding a weekly session (as suggested by everyone) to the plan which I will, although think it will be after Waterford.

And I reserve judgement on the XC...

laura_ac3 wrote: »

I said I'd mosy over to here with my reply. Yeah just read Anna's comments there and that of BG about the strides too. Completely agree with Anna about what worked for the two of us. I took 13 mins off my half time in 6 months and I would have never thought I could make such a dent off the PB in such a space of time. Lots of slow easy miles for the base plus those sessions did the trick! How many days are you running - 4? You could do 2 easy shorter (maybe with strides sometimes on one of those), plus your session and then your longer run. Just helps mix it up a bit too.

Yes the plan is to run 4 days, I find five hard to schedule with everything else, especially when Sunday's need to be more or less free for family hiking time! Have been reading about strides so was thinking I might start incorporating them into the end of some of my shorter runs.

annapr wrote: »

oh, one other thing and then I'll shut up ... one of the great things in the Clearlier plan is that the easy runs are based on time targets, not miles... starting at 30mins and working up to 55... this means that you're not fretting about pace or covering x miles early on. It also means that by the end of the plan, anything less than 55 mins feels like a short run!

Haha a good point! And please don't shut up - the advice is welcome. Is the Clearlier plan on the DCM14 Graduate thread?

Bungy Girl

spaceylou wrote: »

The HalHigeon Plans don't seem to have a 'step-back' week built in but I do agree that it might be something to consider especially seen as one of my goals is to stay injury free. Should the step-back be with regard to distance or effort or both? Like would dropping a session but keeping the mileage the same be a step-back or should I lower the mileage as well? Obviously, this question is based on me adding a weekly session (as suggested by everyone) to the plan which I will, although think it will be after Waterford.

Oops, sorry I thought they did. Must be thinking of some other plans. Anyhow I do think it's not a bad idea to reduce mileage every 3-4 weeks, maybe take an extra rest day if you feel you need it. You could co-ordinate it with any races that you do and make a mini-taper out of it. I don't think the intensity need drop though, in fact (and someone else please jump in here if I'm wrong !!) you could up the intensity during this week (because you wouldn't - never ever ever - increase intensity while increasing mileage.)

spaceylou wrote: »

And I reserve judgement on the XC...

Sold!

spaceylou

Bungy Girl wrote: »

(because you wouldn't - never ever ever - increase intensity while increasing mileage.)

Bear with me on this one...I am a bit slow on the uptake but if the plan is to gradually increase millage over time so say for example and using nice round numbers and respecting the 'no more than 10 per cent' rule:

wk1: 20k
wk2: 22k
wk3: 24k
wk4: 26k
wk5: 28k
wk6: 30k

But you also want to add in some sessions to improve speed then assuming wk 0 was all easy runs, are you not increasing both intensity and millage by adding a session? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Bungy Girl

spaceylou wrote: »

Bear with me on this one...I am a bit slow on the uptake but if the plan is to gradually increase millage over time so say for example and using nice round numbers and respecting the 'no more than 10 per cent' rule:

wk1: 20k
wk2: 22k
wk3: 24k
wk4: 26k
wk5: 28k
wk6: 30k

But you also want to add in some sessions to improve speed then assuming wk 0 was all easy runs, are you not increasing both intensity and millage by adding a session? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Sorry for confusing you, my bad. My understanding was that you are limited to 4 days per week at the moment, and your plan shows all of these 4 days to be either easy or a long run (no sessions). My suggestion was to include some strides or hill sprints towards the end of one of the easy runs. You could do this from Week 1 so straight away you have some speedwork going on. But, you haven't added any sessions/days to the plan i.e. the basic structure remains the same. A little bit further down the line you could incorporate some fartlek into another easy run. Again, no change to the number of days. And very little effect on the mileage.

A stepback week in terms of overall mileage using your example above might look something like this (not suggesting these exact figures, just illustrating):

wk1: 20k
wk2: 22k
wk3: 24k
wk4: 22k
wk5: 25k
wk6: 27k
wk7: 30k
wk8: 28k

Does that make better sense ? Wk4 and Wk8 in this example might include a race (high intensity) instead of a long run.

spaceylou

Thanks for that - yeah at the moment, with my back still recovering I am limiting to easy runs - 3 short(er) (maybe throw in some strides after one of these) and one long until the end of June half...after that I am planning/hoping for something more akin to what I posted...and following advice from folk on here it will be 1 LSR; 2 Shorter (maybe with strides at the end of one of these) and 1 session.

Overall I will aim to increase millage (with some step-back weeks) so my question was more how about your comment not to increase millage and intensity at the same time. Surely the sessions increase in intensity/effort as the weeks go on or should I aim to keep effort the same with the pace just naturally increasing as the training block progresses?

Bungy Girl

spaceylou wrote: »

Surely the sessions increase in intensity/effort as the weeks go on or should I aim to keep effort the same with the pace just naturally increasing as the training block progresses?

The effort still remains high for the session e.g. 8/9 out of 10 but as you get fitter over the duration of the training schedule the pace will be increased for the same effort or you will be able to hold the same pace for longer at the same effort. Your 8 or 9 out of 10 effort may be 4:30 min/km initially for 1 min bursts but at the end that same effort (so the intensity hasn't changed) might be 4 minute bursts.

spaceylou

With you now - thanks for being so patient

Firedance

If you pop over to the dcm graduates thread SL and have a read of the plan and clearliers explanations you'll get a really good understanding of sessions, paces & running for time rather than distance. The great thing about his plan is that it can be adapted to suit the no of days you can run.

spaceylou

spaceylou wrote: »

I want to do a 60 min run at the weekend but don't want my long run to be any more than 2/3 of weekly total so I think that means I need to go for a 10 min run tomorrow - hardly seems worth putting on my runners for so short so might make it 20 min.

So my grasp of fractions is woeful - what I actually meant was I didn't want the long run to be much more than 1/3 (not 2/3) of week total which means I need to run 20 min today or tomorrow to make a 60 min run approx 37 per cent (OH is good with figures) of the weekly total. Unlikely to happen today because of social life commitments so will do it in the morning before heading off for the weekend.

spaceylou

spaceylou wrote: »

Been thinking (and avoiding work) about training plans for next few months...

Phase 1: now - Waterford Half (27 June) - slow and steady, gradually increasing - focus on finishing the thing in one piece, ideally without walking and super ideally faster than last year, which was 2hr 23 off inconsistent training.

Phase 2: Waterford Half - Dublin Half in September. Have tweaked the Hal Higdon Novice II plan (see below) and appreciate thoughts. The tweaks were not because I have any great desire to reinvent the wheel but rather because I want to enter the rest of the race series and I have some events/holidays that need to be taken into account. I also want to fit in Pilates and gentle swimming upon advice from my physio and because if I don't I will break - simple as!

Focus for this phase is train consistently; avoid injury; and run <1:59:59.9 in the half in Dublin. Maybe this is not possible, will revise after Waterford but am keeping it there for now.

Phase 3: Sept - Spring 15 - look at speed, enter some 5k races; 10 k races and the like and try improve those times. Maybe ponder the merits of XC although my only memory of running in school was being cold and wet and XC races so we will see :eek:

Phase 4: Spring 15 - start building long runs and endurance with a view to starting, completing and most importantly enjoying DCM16.

Now of course this is all subject to change cause who knows what the future holds but for now that is the loose plan.

Thank you so much for all the advice folks - it really is much appreciated.

Now - end of June, I am sticking with slow and easy gets round the course with a few strides thrown in at the end of one shorter run every week.

Then from end of June I am, all going well, starting 12 week plan to nail the Dublin half in September. Based on your advice, looked to HH's Intermediate plan but tweaked to allow for Dublin Race Series as well as two kinda step-back weeks. I've also had to move sessions around to allow for when the gym schedules Pilates, when I find it easier to do my long runs and so on - final product is attached (sheet 2 of the spreadsheet) if anyone fancies procrastinating and critiquing.

My main questions are:
1. are the step-back's, step back enough?
2. Is it really a good idea to keep doing the same interval sessions but adding another interval every two weeks or might it be more beneficial, and interesting, to have more variety e.g. hills or a pyramid session or some fartlek?

spaceylou

Firedance wrote: »

If you pop over to the dcm graduates thread SL and have a read of the plan and clearliers explanations you'll get a really good understanding of sessions, paces & running for time rather than distance. The great thing about his plan is that it can be adapted to suit the no of days you can run.

Ooh just saw this now - thanks, shall take a look. Have a few weeks to read lots before I start the 12 week lead into the Dublin half

spaceylou

Friday

Headed out for a short run so that my planned long run wouldn't be too large a proportion of the weekly total! Two laps of the local park, plus there and back gave me 4.6 (I think, need to charge watch and check) km in 25 min before being whisked away for the weekend

Saturday

Long run planned of 50 - 60 min, hotel had 8k or so of walking trails so thought I'd head out and see where they took me - wrong turn meant half the run was on the golf course trails (the ones the golf buggies use) and the other half was on the mucky trails...in 55 min I had everything from woodland trails with lots of muck, open golf course, driving rain, hurricane speed winds, glorious sunshine and lots of steep ups and downs - a typical Irish day I guess! Not sure of distance as I didn't wait for the watch to pick up gps before I set off but it is claiming close to 9 km which might be right ish - focused more on keeping effort constant and slowing /speeding pace depending on terrain and the level of wind trying to push me back! Very enjoyable run, felt strong at the end and like I could have gone on for quite a bit longer except I had a spa appointment to keep!

Rest of day spent in the spa - probably swam about 400m in total over the entire weekend and lots of lounging...followed by some evening stretching and foam rolling.

Sunday

No running today but we did head out for a walk/hike/ramble for 1hr 50min. Probably a question for another forum but when does a walk become a hike?

Next week hope to run 4 days (1 long); 2 pilates classes and hit the pool twice with lots of stretching and the usual walking from home to work most days.

annapr

a walk becomes a hike when you're up to your ankles in bog

Myles Splitz

Just cacthing up on this log. Best of luck going forward with the plan

spaceylou wrote: »

2. Is it really a good idea to keep doing the same interval sessions but adding another interval every two weeks or might it be more beneficial, and interesting, to have more variety e.g. hills or a pyramid session or some fartlek?

* You could alternate every 4th week with hills that will still provide similar stimulus.

* You could alternate with 10km pace work so maybe 5x600m off same recovery with slower paces than the 5k work. This could help complement the 5km sessions.

Edit: just looked at that Graduate thread some great advice also there

spaceylou

annapr wrote: »

a walk becomes a hike when you're up to your ankles in bog

Ah we weren't quite ankle deep - just a walk so

spaceylou

Myles Splitz wrote: »

Just cacthing up on this log. Best of luck going forward with the plan



* You could alternate every 4th week with hills that will still provide similar stimulus.

* You could alternate with 10km pace work so maybe 5x600m off same recovery with slower paces than the 5k work. This could help complement the 5km sessions.

Edit: just looked at that Graduate thread some great advice also there

Thanks for the tips MS - am going to read the graduate thread properly as well between now and end of the month and take it from there. I just think I'd be bored doing the same thing every week - variety is the spice of life and all that!

spaceylou

Got myself a fancy table...

Running| 2015 KM| Comment
April| 71.77|
May| 27.41| The Lost Month


After one week of June I am almost at the same number of kilometers as for the entire month of May - back still not 100 per cent but feeling much stronger!