In which I pick a marathon training plan

95 days until the London marathon. Gulp.

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In my past marathons, I've used the New York City Marathon Official training plan, available via an interactive tool at the New York Times. I've like having the structure of a plan, and the tool has been useful for marking my progress.

But this time around, I haven't really engaged with the tool. I punched in my dates, got my schedule, but just haven't been looking at it much.

I've also felt that something was lacking. Because of my previous epic fades, I was starting to think that I need more long runs. In particular, I wanted to do more mid-week long runs. These would pave the way for less traumatic weekend long runs.

And then I listened to this.

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The Pete Pfitzinger plan, as described in his book Advanced Marathoning, is just what I've been looking for. Basically, it includes lots of longish mid-week runs, and a gradual increase in overall weekly mileage. I've adopted an 18-week, 55 mile (peak week) plan, and it has been a slight jump up as I've entered it in Week 3 of the plan. I'm hoping my body will adapt. In the meantime I've eased back a bit on the mileage if my legs are tired. Today, for example, the plan called for a 9 mile run, and I did 7.

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So, my past week, which included the New Years holiday, looked like the following:

Mon: swim 1600m
Tues: nothing
Weds: 1:06 (6.5 miles?) in the countryside (New Years day; a touch hung-over)
Thurs: 1:05 (6 miles ish?) Hill reps x 10 with club
Fri: swim 800 m, some weights after
Sat: 2 mile warm up + park run race (3.1 miles hard)+ 1 mile cool down
Sun: 14.6 tiring miles

All in, about 5:13 of running.

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The past month has been the wettest ever in Scotland, apparently. The river near the bottom of our garden was high for several days, but dropped recently so that the usual rocks are now visible.