The 2023 Graduates Thread - What's Next?

thanks for reply.

Sorry, should have mentioned it is the beginner tab I'm using for the boards plan, so the plan for this week would be

60 Very Easy | 5 x 8 min threshold | 60 Very Easy | Rest | 8K | 15K | Rest/Cross

Boards Beginner would have been:

60 Very Easy | 5 x 8 min threshold | 60 Very Easy | Rest | 60 Very Easy | 70 min Threshold | Rest/Recovery 20 mins

HH intermediate 1 would have been:

5k | 8K | 5K | Rest | 8K | 15K | Cross

It is a bit of a step up in KM to combine the two plans compared to just HH, at least for now anyways. I started doing the hybrid plan this week to start somewhere: 60 V.Easy was 8.5K and 9k this week. The threshold run was 14K with wu and cd. So I have 32k done at this point, while I'd only have 18K with HH.

The boards plan doesn't really ramp up the midweek runs at all, they are always 60 Easy with a speed session, and I don't see any of the other sessions being any longer than 14K. HH does eventually have weeks that start with 8k | 13k | 8K, so not a million miles off.

Yeah I had considered just adding speed sessions to HH, but I was kind of worried that at what point am I essentially just creating a new plan anyways.

I feel ok so far for the week, and thats even after racing a 10 mile on Saturday. I have had 3 months of between 30-45K a week leading up to this, so while 55Km projected for this week is a step up, it's not a huge change. Boards plan only would probably have been similar KM anyways. Next week is a step back with HH too so that should drop back to a projected 45K for the week.

I know there is no magic 8 ball which will say its the right thing to do or not. I just didn't find a plan that really resonated with me (yet?) so said I'd just try something!

The Saturday threshold was a typo, but I did run 5x Threshold on Tuesday… :/ (there is 12 minutes of my life I won't get back!)

I'll properly combine the plans and print them out this weekend to avoid such mishaps in the future!

Yup, to be honest I had missed that! I combined the plans last night and only realised it then. Hopefully my running will be more successful than my organisation attempts!

This is the current iteration of the plan, we are in week 2. Roughly 975km on the plan + DCM (I'm rough guessing for some of the Tuesday sessions distances, but its probably close enough).

Last year I started HH in week 5 and did 750KM, so comparing the two plans from week 5 on, its about 60-70KM extra in total, which should be ok spread over 12/13 weeks

Tullamore is a week later than HH Race half should be, so I just swapped those weeks around. I also reduced the running a little that week. I ran a training run as the half race last year (Just went out locally but at race pace), and it went well from a time point of view, but I think getting an extra race day experience will be helpful as I think i was a bit green last year.

I might do streets of Galway (which is 8k) instead of the "12K (P)" (marathon pace) and push the 23K til Sunday (depending on how I'm feeling). Not overly bothered on a time for this so don't need to go flat out or anything, just more for the social aspect nearly. Not signed up yet though.

Just in relation to Tullamore Half - it's almost sold out so don't sit on the fence regarding entry.

Was catching up with this thread after a little while and made me think I better get my ass in gear. I hadn't put any thought into which plan for this years DCM, and it's hard to believe it's that time again!

After looking at Boards novice plan from 2023, Boards beginner plan in the spreadsheet and Hal Higdon, I might try the hydrid approach like witnessmenow as for long runs I need distance goals (I am really slow and not getting any faster). A mix of the beginner and novice plans, or maybe I could just do the novice plan. I do like mixing it up midweek though for more speed, when time goals are fine. What I have to consider when making the plan is I need to have at least one yoga session per week and one S&C. Another thing is that I play 5 a side once a week which I'm not sure helps with the training. I can do the Thursday run early AM and then football in the evening. I'll drop the football at some point though in case of injury. Last thing is that I joined a running group a few months ago, which is great for the being social while running, and mixing it up training wise, but being as slow as I am, their easy pace is my PB pace. I think that might be a bad idea as risk of overdoing it and injury will increase, and it's probably not ideal for improving my base fitness. So, I might do the shorter sessions with them and do LSRs by myself.

I've been running 4-5 a week since spring but had hols in June and a bad dose so missed a good chunk then. Did Clontarf HM last weekend in 2:27 which I'm happy enough with considering training was limited for the 5 weeks previous. Didn't walk any sections and it was a tough day with the wind and heat.

Thanks @witnessmenow. I'm fairly certain I'll do the novice plan for weekends as it has the required mileage. The question is midweek. Beginner has a bit more speed work (threshold/CV/tempo), whereas novice has MP as the fastest pace. I think I need some faster sessions just to keep it more interesting.

Easy and very easy pace is something I need to work out. Using Tinman, that's ~8:15/km, ~7:45/km for me. That reads and feels so slow. Maybe I need to just try it and stick to it. Maybe I have always done my LSRs too fast, hence why my times have not improved much.

I have not seen much evidence of improvement from my own efforts with easy running but have certainly seen proof from others who have stuck with it. It may be the case that I pushed into zone 3 a bit too often and did not get the benefit. Or I just didn't give it long enough as I'd run out of patience after a few weeks. Similar to T-Bird, my 5K times are now 1.5 mins slower than 18 months ago which is when I started to increase my mileage training for my first half and full marathon. At the same time, I stopped doing regular S&C work to make room for running extra distance in a week but in hindsight, that was the wrong thing to do. My plan now is to do at least one S&C a week.

According to my Garmin, my zone 2 is 118-132 BPM and using an online calculator it's 125-136, so I'm going to try aim for keeping to the 120s on my easy runs. I've learned from how I feel and my breathing to recognise when I'm putting in too much effort so I shouldn't have to keep looking at the watch, but I'll wear the HR chest strap for these runs just to be sure.

I'm aiming running 5 days a week, yoga and S&C on the other days. One speedier session midweek and LSR at the weekend. All runs bar the speed one will be easy/very easy pace. Unfortunately, I tweaked my back on Sunday so need a few days off running. But I'm raring to go now!!

How's your fuelling on the day of these runs, including during?

I've come to terms with I need more fuelling than others. At the 10 mile run in Roscommon I had:

• 2 gels
• 4 cola bottles (roughly 6 is the equivalent of a gel carb wise)
• About 300ml of a carb loaded drink (about a gel)

If I had posted a thread on here saying I was thinking of taking this stuff for a 10 miler, I would be ridiculed. And in fairness there wasn't many there with gels at all.

Maybe I didn't need all that, you would need to clone me and compare how one got on with and one without to know for sure, but I've had weeks where I basically hit the wall at 12K at a relatively easy pace one week, had to stop for a walk and raced a 16k the following week at a faster pace, where I just focused on food and fuelling a bit more.

So I want to practise what works for me. In these experiments I want to basically see what my limits are of fuelling without negatively impacting me. For example I know I start to feel crap stomach wise after 3 or 4 gels, so spreading the load into different delivery methods seems to have helped

I'm currently eating a calorie deficit and losing weight week on week, so maybe that requires a different approach than the norm. Although you'll find some people online recommending 2-3 gels per hour!