DCM 2015: Mentored Novices Thread

adrian522

Yeah, take that info to a running shop and they should be able to advise you. Best if you can try on a few pairs and see which suits you best.

diego_b

Hi, I'm working on a Dublin plan at the moment, I'll attach it here and welcome any feedback you may have.
It's based on the 16week plan from Graeme Hilditch's Marathon and Half Marathon training guide, I've increased it out to 23 weeks by repeating some weeks to fit in the running I'm doing now (he advised to repeat every 3/4 week if you had time to have a longer build up).
I'd just like to focus now more on running certain days and distance with my goal race in October in mind.
The circuits on Tuesday night are with my club, we typically do a field session so a mix of sprint work and/or strength/conditioning. If weather is poor that becomes a hill session.
I have a few races in the plan, two half marathons....one in June and one in September and also two 10K races....one in June and one in August (possibly a second in August but can miss that if needs be)
I've tweaked the plan in places to allow recovery and rest after hard sessions/race and I expect I would be able to follow a plan like this reasonably closely. The plan also allows for some family time to keep everyone happy!

adrian522

Week 12 has Tempo/Long Run/Race on consecutive days. I really think you need to drop one of those sessions (at least). That is if you are planning to race the 10K flat out.

diego_b

Thanks for that, that is my plan if I do that other 10K race (not signed up for it yet but I did it last year and enjoyed it) to drop the LSR that weekend and maybe change the tempo run to an easy run.

adrian522

That would be best. If you add a 2 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down to the 10K you will be running 9 miles for the day so should be no need for a separate LSR that week. Also no need to run a tempo before it, just an easy run that day would be fine I think.

diego_b

Cool that sounds very doable, do you think I possibly have two many races in there or does it look reasonable enough?

adrian522

You've got 4 races there, I don't think it's too much. But you have 3 10K's and a half.

Last year in the same timeframe I did 1 each of the following 5 mile, 10K, 10 Mile and Half marathon.

I think this was a good buildup in terms of distance and kept my training a bit more focused. So not too many races if you enjoy racing. If there was a good 10 mile close to you I think it would be a good idea too instead of one of the 10K's, but if the 10K's are races that you enjoy no harm in keeping them.

Chilli Con Kearney

What is your athletics background? Have you run before? What other sports have you taken part in and at what level?

Started running properly about 2 years ago. Have played 5 a side soccer, tag rugby and a lot of golf.

Have you raced before? If so what are your PBs? (Date and distance please!)

Done four half marathons. My best is now 1:37 which I did in Balbriggan this year.

Do you still need to take walk breaks in your training ? (No problem if you do)
No.

How much training do you currently do incl cross training? Distances, cross training - whatever you think is relevant to your current fitness level.

Typically do two runs a week. One long one, about 16k, then one shorter one around 10k.

Additionally, I do TRX classes and circuit training 4 times a week.

How many days a week do you run only?
Depends, maybe one of the two days I run.

What do you want to achieve? Dream finishing time and realistic finishing time? Or just complete it in no specified time?

Maybe it's ambitious but I was thinking somewhere around 3:30.

What marathon programme are you following/intending to use?

I have recently looked at several plans and made one up. It's now posted in the spare room on the wall! Doing another half in two weeks, then starting the training plan in the second last week of June. I'm hoping it's the right tone for me!!

Thanks for reading! Good luck everyone.

diego_b

It's 5 races in total, the Half on the Head is half marathon I have on Sat 13th of June....I did a 10 mile race two weekends ago and it went grand. I ran it faster than my half marathon pace so was 3 mins faster for the distance than I was at the 10 mile mark in the half marathon in Limerick. I didn't know at the time as well that I was coming down with a throat infection and I think that affected me a bit as I felt a bit jaded in the last two-three miles, the first 3 miles of the race being all up hill didn't help either!!

I do enjoy races a lot to be honest and I think they keep me focused.
There is a chance I might be able to do the Frank Duffy 10 Mile in August so I guess trading that for the 10K on the 17th might be more worthwhile.

Notwork Error

diego_b wrote: »

Hi, I'm working on a Dublin plan at the moment, I'll attach it here and welcome any feedback you may have.
It's based on the 16week plan from Graeme Hilditch's Marathon and Half Marathon training guide, I've increased it out to 23 weeks by repeating some weeks to fit in the running I'm doing now (he advised to repeat every 3/4 week if you had time to have a longer build up).
I'd just like to focus now more on running certain days and distance with my goal race in October in mind.
The circuits on Tuesday night are with my club, we typically do a field session so a mix of sprint work and/or strength/conditioning. If weather is poor that becomes a hill session.
I have a few races in the plan, two half marathons....one in June and one in September and also two 10K races....one in June and one in August (possibly a second in August but can miss that if needs be)
I've tweaked the plan in places to allow recovery and rest after hard sessions/race and I expect I would be able to follow a plan like this reasonably closely. The plan also allows for some family time to keep everyone happy!

Forgive me if this comes across as blunt but I don't do subtlety very well but I am looking at this with your best interest in mind.

I think the last 7+ weeks are way too intense and need serious reconsideration. Frankly, I think the whole plan needs to be scrapped as I can't see you getting through it as is.

Just a few points. Before your half marathon, the longest LSR you will be doing is 12 miles but the week after and until raceday, you are doing some hugely heavy sessions in the form of 15+ mile runs at steady pace every week and some weeks, that is the day after a tempo run. There is no need to be doing these huge sessions, you'll burnout if you try.

Also, There are weeks where you have a circuit session, fartlek/speed, Tempo, steady on consecutive days. That's a recipe for disaster. The old adage of "train smarter, not harder" comes to mind when I read that plan. There is no need for you to be doing all of these intense sessions every week. I would definitely not recommend that you do any steady pace run of over 13 miles and that should be a once in a blue moon workout, not something to be done week in, week out.

You will get huge benefit from just doing LSR's without all the risk associated with hugely intense and long steady paced pace runs. I wouldn't do any speedwork/tempo runs the day before a long run either. If you want to do a steady paced run, swap it out with a tempo run that week.

If your circuit training is hillwork or sprints, that's a workout for the week and I wouldn't do more than 2 workouts and a long run in any given week for where you are now. Honestly, I would scrap the plan completely as it is as it needs a huge amount of work and chopping and changing. You'd be amazed how far easy runs, some speedwork and a traditional long run will bring you.

I would seriously recommend that you do not follow through with the plan and reconsider your options.

FBOT01

diego_b wrote: »

Hi, I'm working on a Dublin plan at the moment, I'll attach it here and welcome any feedback you may have.
It's based on the 16week plan from Graeme Hilditch's Marathon and Half Marathon training guide, I've increased it out to 23 weeks by repeating some weeks to fit in the running I'm doing now (he advised to repeat every 3/4 week if you had time to have a longer build up).
I'd just like to focus now more on running certain days and distance with my goal race in October in mind.
The circuits on Tuesday night are with my club, we typically do a field session so a mix of sprint work and/or strength/conditioning. If weather is poor that becomes a hill session.
I have a few races in the plan, two half marathons....one in June and one in September and also two 10K races....one in June and one in August (possibly a second in August but can miss that if needs be)
I've tweaked the plan in places to allow recovery and rest after hard sessions/race and I expect I would be able to follow a plan like this reasonably closely. The plan also allows for some family time to keep everyone happy!

I know nothing about Graeme Hilditch's plans but to me the plan you have attached looks very heavily weighted towards two days running one after the other. From weeks 16 through 21 your long runs which you plan to do at Steady Pace, are more than 50% of your weekly mileage and are immediately after a tempo session the day before. During this period over 60% and in some weeks up to 75% of your weekly mileage is squashed into 2 days and will be run at steady pace or faster. Doesn't seem very sensible to me and looks like a high risk strategy from an injury prospective.

While keeping the focus on quality rather than quantity in terms of making the most of your running days is something I would agree with, I think this strategy will only work if you spread out the quality correctly to get the most out of it without injury.

I did my first marathon on a 3 day per week running plan which focused on quality sessions rather than mileage and it got me over the line but it allowed at least one rest/recovery/cross training day between each running day.

diego_b

Serious food for thought there, thank you both.
I am very wary of injury and as this is my first attempt at a marathon I really appreciate the advice.
Circuit training for me will be Tuesday nights most weeks so if I am to go with what I would think I can manage of 4 days a week training.
Would a LSR run on a Saturday morning and then say a run Sunday evening with a run Thursday evening also be sufficient to allow rest?

menoscemo

diego_b wrote: »

Serious food for thought there, thank you both.
I am very wary of injury and as this is my first attempt at a marathon I really appreciate the advice.
Circuit training for me will be Tuesday nights most weeks so if I am to go with what I would think I can manage of 4 days a week training.
Would a LSR run on a Saturday morning and then say a run Sunday evening with a run Thursday evening also be sufficient to allow rest?

You don't 'need' rest days per sé between sessions, take some rest days by all means but doing a very slow recovery run (30-40 minutes at the slowest pace you can jog) is arguably more effective than doing nothing. I think people feel they need rest days more than they actually do generally because they don't know how to run genuinely easy on easy days.

Dubgal72

Dubgal72 wrote: »

Sorry again for the late reply
It does make sense... so if you are running 5 hours a week, your lsr would be 2 hours? (And of course you are building/have built up sensibly to this ) 40% is at the very very upper limits of ok IMO. And the other three hours are spread over how many runs? I'm interested in the concept of lsr's including tempo at this stage...any feedback from your whip cracker on this? There is more than one way to train for a marathon so we're all ears

I missed this earlier, so sorry.

OK so this week's programme is;
Tuesday: 10mins WU. 30 mins @ MHR. 10mins WD.
Thursday: 40 mins easy + 4 x 60m strides.
Friday: 80 mins easy with 6 x 30second surges within the last 20mins.

+ 2 crossfit sessions. + Core work.

So yeh, just under 50% of my total running time is on my LSR.

But the week after the Irish Runner 5 mile it looks more like this:

Tuesday: 12mins WU. 6 x 4mins LT HR. 10mins WD.
Thursday: 50mins easy + 6 x 50m turnabouts.
Saturday: 110mins easy including 6 x 2mins surges in last 40mins
Sunday: 30mins easy.

+ 2 crossfit sessions + core work.

Then I'm into my marathon specific programme.

How's that looking?

Singer

Training update:

Date | Distance | Speed | Notes
17th May | 6.15 miles | 8'38 | A little hungover, so a simple run instead of an LSR.
18th May | 13.2 miles | 9'17 | LSR, picked up the pace a bit in the second half.
20th May | 3.1 miles | 7'15 | Treadmill, followed by some weights
21st May | 10 miles | 8'51 | Run home from work
23rd May | | | Cross training in gym (row, weights, cycle)
24th May | 6.24 miles | 9'19 | DNF LSR!!!


Previous training update: (gah, I still can't link - it was the 113th post in this thread).

Week didn't start out too great, having family over turned into a few drinks, so a planned LSR on the Sunday morning was hastily arranged into a plain old jog. Got the LSR in on Monday though. As threatened I did a bit of gym work in the week which went well. However, I also started to get a sore chest/lung and headaches towards the end of the week. I kind of wrote it off as some weird strain in my shoulder, but it was fairly persistent and starting to affect my sleep. I went out for a long run on Sunday afternoon and had to stop - taking deep breaths was getting very painful (breathing while running is unfortunately a requirement) and while I could probably deal with that pain alone (though obviously a terrible idea) the pain was also making a bad headache worse, so I stopped running. The walk home was miserable, though at least the weather was nice.

Symptoms continued to get worse over the rest of Sunday, I felt very fatigued and didn't sleep well at all, so I grudgingly went to the doctor first thing yesterday - turns out that "I have a weird pain on the left side of my chest" gets you to the top of the queue

A bunch of questioning and examining later, I'm off to Beaumont for a chest x-ray with a bunch of steroids and anti-inflammatories to take. It looks like I have pleurisy, something I thought only happened to characters in Charles Dickens novels. It's not related to running, probably caused by a viral infection and it's not likely to affect my training for too long - the doc reckoned take a bit of rest and return to running when it's not sore. I'll rest for a few more days, and maybe do some non-aerobic gym work before doing some light running towards the end of the week.

This is the third time this year I've not been able to run due to injury / medical problem, so it looks like the odds aren't great at staying fully fit between now and DCM day (5 months to the day!). In March I had radioactive iodine treatment to clear up a small dose of thyroid cancer (the treatment itself didn't stop me from running - but being off thyroid hormone for a few weeks before meant I didn't get out much) and on my first run after the treatment I hurt my left foot, taking me for another few weeks!

Anyway, a good early reminder to run when you can and be ready to reassess goals as circumstances change. This obviously doesn't change my plans for now, though I first need to fully recover. Hopefully I'll be able to check in with a less dramatic training update next week - hopefully I won't have contracted smallpox, scurvy or another disease from the 19th century in the meantime.

Bungy Girl

Singer wrote: »

This obviously doesn't change my plans for now, though I first need to fully recover. Hopefully I'll be able to check in with a less dramatic training update next week - hopefully I won't have contracted smallpox, scurvy or another disease from the 19th century in the meantime.

Well you deserve a bit of luck after all that ! Hope you have a quick recovery but do make sure you're 100% better before starting up again, you still have plenty of time so don't be tempted to come back before you're fully recovered.

laura_ac3

Bungy Girl wrote: »

Well you deserve a bit of luck after all that ! Hope you have a quick recovery but do make sure you're 100% better before starting up again, you still have plenty of time so don't be tempted to come back before you're fully recovered.

Absolutely. Do be careful on any return - you see people getting sick/chest infections etc and they feel better and start back training but the body must not be recovered after the illness, antibiotics etc and they get another dose. Take your time, and keep the return easy. Hope you're feeling better soon - don't go for any walk on any moors or you could get a Bronte style illness this time!!

FBOT01

menoscemo wrote: »

You don't 'need' rest days per sé between sessions, take some rest days by all means but doing a very slow recovery run (30-40 minutes at the slowest pace you can jog) is arguably more effective than doing nothing. I think people feel they need rest days more than they actually do generally because they don't know how to run genuinely easy on easy days.

Would agree with a recovery run being better for you than doing nothing but slowly slowly catchy monkey...when he/she gets hooked he/she will find that out for himself/herself. Until then the key is to do nothing stupid that will derail things before they really begin

The mental jump to running 5, 6 or even 7 days per week even if 2 or 3 of those are easy/recovery runs is a big one and is only really palatable when it sneaks up on you

RonanP77

FBOT01 wrote:

Would agree with a recovery run being better for you than doing nothing but slowly slowly catchy monkey...when he/she gets hooked he/she will find that out for himself/herself. Until then the key is to do nothing stupid that will derail things before they really begin

I've seen people constantly say that your rest days are as important as your running days so I have two rest days a week. I'd gladly run 5 days a week and two cross training if I thought it was better for me.

Myles Splitz

RonanP77 wrote: »

I've seen people constantly say that your rest days are as important as your running days so I have two rest days a week. I'd gladly run 5 days a week and two cross training if I thought it was better for me.

I think people mistake rest and recovery when they are describing these days. Active recovery can be just as useful as long as the body has been prepared for it. Recovery can start off with as simple as a 20 minute walk. It's just to aide blood flow and maintain range of movement in limbs

Dubgal72

diego_b wrote: »

Hi, I'm working on a Dublin plan at the moment, I'll attach it here and welcome any feedback you may have.
It's based on the 16week plan from Graeme Hilditch's Marathon and Half Marathon training guide, I've increased it out to 23 weeks by repeating some weeks to fit in the running I'm doing now (he advised to repeat every 3/4 week if you had time to have a longer build up).
I'd just like to focus now more on running certain days and distance with my goal race in October in mind.
The circuits on Tuesday night are with my club, we typically do a field session so a mix of sprint work and/or strength/conditioning. If weather is poor that becomes a hill session.
I have a few races in the plan, two half marathons....one in June and one in September and also two 10K races....one in June and one in August (possibly a second in August but can miss that if needs be)
I've tweaked the plan in places to allow recovery and rest after hard sessions/race and I expect I would be able to follow a plan like this reasonably closely. The plan also allows for some family time to keep everyone happy!

Hi Diego_b, you've had very sound advice there. You say your plan is "based" on Hilditch's plan? So I take it to mean that you have pretty much constructed it yourself to suit your other commitments? It does need quite a bit of tweaking as suggested above so if you want to go back to the drawing board with some help, give us a shout here

Dubgal72

Chilli Con Kearney wrote: »

What is your athletics background? Have you run before? What other sports have you taken part in and at what level?

Started running properly about 2 years ago. Have played 5 a side soccer, tag rugby and a lot of golf.

Have you raced before? If so what are your PBs? (Date and distance please!)

Done four half marathons. My best is now 1:37 which I did in Balbriggan this year.

Do you still need to take walk breaks in your training ? (No problem if you do)
No.

How much training do you currently do incl cross training? Distances, cross training - whatever you think is relevant to your current fitness level.

Typically do two runs a week. One long one, about 16k, then one shorter one around 10k.

Additionally, I do TRX classes and circuit training 4 times a week.

How many days a week do you run only?
Depends, maybe one of the two days I run.

What do you want to achieve? Dream finishing time and realistic finishing time? Or just complete it in no specified time?

Maybe it's ambitious but I was thinking somewhere around 3:30.

What marathon programme are you following/intending to use?

I have recently looked at several plans and made one up. It's now posted in the spare room on the wall! Doing another half in two weeks, then starting the training plan in the second last week of June. I'm hoping it's the right tone for me!!

Thanks for reading! Good luck everyone.

Hi there chilli! Welcome to the thread. You're going well (1:37 for a half says so anyway) on two days a week...but I really think you need to start scheduling more days for running in order to spread the load (I had to google TRX ). I'd love to see your schedule, any chance you'd do a 'show and tell'?! You can PM it if you like. We want to keep you injury free and if there's anything there that screams 'overload' we can tweak it now rather than further down the line

Dubgal72

Deleted User wrote: »

I missed this earlier, so sorry.

OK so this week's programme is;
Tuesday: 10mins WU. 30 mins @ MHR. 10mins WD.
Thursday: 40 mins easy + 4 x 60m strides.
Friday: 80 mins easy with 6 x 30second surges within the last 20mins.

+ 2 crossfit sessions. + Core work.

So yeh, just under 50% of my total running time is on my LSR.

But the week after the Irish Runner 5 mile it looks more like this:

Tuesday: 12mins WU. 6 x 4mins LT HR. 10mins WD.
Thursday: 50mins easy + 6 x 50m turnabouts.
Saturday: 110mins easy including 6 x 2mins surges in last 40mins
Sunday: 30mins easy.

+ 2 crossfit sessions + core work.

Then I'm into my marathon specific programme.

How's that looking?

Thanks for posting that. So the idea of the surges at the end of the lsr is to simulate a race situation when tired legs have to dig in or....? I'm not convinced that is needed on every lsr at this stage of training, especially when you are also doing strides for leg turnover during the week. Sometimes a lsr needs to be exactly what it says on the tin...Anyone else any thoughts on this?

Dubgal72

Singer wrote: »

Training update:

A bunch of questioning and examining later, I'm off to Beaumont for a chest x-ray with a bunch of steroids and anti-inflammatories to take. It looks like I have pleurisy, something I thought only happened to characters in Charles Dickens novels. It's not related to running, probably caused by a viral infection and it's not likely to affect my training for too long - the doc reckoned take a bit of rest and return to running when it's not sore. I'll rest for a few more days, and maybe do some non-aerobic gym work before doing some light running towards the end of the week.

This is the third time this year I've not been able to run due to injury / medical problem, so it looks like the odds aren't great at staying fully fit between now and DCM day (5 months to the day!). In March I had radioactive iodine treatment to clear up a small dose of thyroid cancer (the treatment itself didn't stop me from running - but being off thyroid hormone for a few weeks before meant I didn't get out much) and on my first run after the treatment I hurt my left foot, taking me for another few weeks!

Anyway, a good early reminder to run when you can and be ready to reassess goals as circumstances change. This obviously doesn't change my plans for now, though I first need to fully recover. Hopefully I'll be able to check in with a less dramatic training update next week - hopefully I won't have contracted smallpox, scurvy or another disease from the 19th century in the meantime.

Aw Singer, sorry to hear this. You're not having a healthy run are you?! (Oops sorry about that awful pun...)
+1 to the above. There is an old saying on boards (well, not reeally but....):

"A rest in time saves nine"

It's true though, rest until you feel ready to return to jogging...and then take another two days before you even think of lacing up your shoes. Got that?! GWS and get plenty of sleep...

Dubgal72

Novices, I am out of office for the next few days* but you are in great hands here. I'll pop in when I can. In the meantime, eat (healthily), sleep (8 hours min) and sloooooow those lsr's down

Back to business Sunday






*warm weather pre-WMM training/taper. It's a hard gig but someone's got to do it

ChadHogan

Hi All,

I took part in the 2014 novice thread, and found it a hugely valuable resource. I have unfinished business with DCM, only got to 20 miles and an injury I’d had in the 3-4 weeks coming up to the marathon came back to bite me. I’ve done the post-mortem a million times over and I genuinely think if I had done one or two things differently in the build up I’d not have gotten injured and would have finished. So I’ll be hoping to learn from others contributing and will happily let people know if I see them making some of the mistakes I made last year.

What is your athletics background? Have you run before? What other sports have you taken part in and at what level?
Played rugby for about 15 years up to age 30 , in Leinster Junior Leagues. I took it very seriously although there was never danger of an Ireland cap. For the last 3 years more or less I’ve been running, just started out on my own and then did the odd race with a friend and finally joined a club in January –although haven’t attended a single session since February as I’ve been struggling with chest infections and sore throats on and off and have a problematic phlegm issue (EUCH!)im trying to sort at the moment. at the moment i can manage 5 miles easy and 8 miles lsr without it becoming a probem


Have you raced before? If so what are your PBs? (Date and distance please!)
5k: 22:07, - mar 2014
10k: 47:06, Apr 14
10 Mile: 1:17:58,Aug 14.
HM: 1:41:48 Sep 14.

I am quite a way behind this however

Do you still need to take walk breaks in your training ? (No problem if you do)
No
How much training do you currently do ? Distances, cross training - whatever you think is relevant to your current fitness level.
currently getting out on average twice a week at the moment, as I said above I’ve been struggling with illness, and also have a new baby at home but things are starting to settle on both fronts. Last race was Raheny 5 mile in Jan which I ran 38:30 ish I think. I’d say I’m another minute slower than that right now, but nothing a few weeks consistent training won’t fix.

How many days a week can you train?
4-5

What do you want to achieve? Dream finishing time and realistic finishing time? Or just complete it in no specified time?
4 hours, I was on target for 4 hours last year when my foot flared up. If I’m honest I think 4:10 was where id have ended up as the temperature had begun to rise when I hit Terenure, but if I’m injury free and with more favourable conditions I think the 4 hrs is in me.


What marathon programme are you following/intending to use?
Boards plan which I followed last year, I cannot speak highly enough of it. I put my HM pb down to following the plan, really surprised myself that day, as I had done no running faster than 8:45 mins per mile for 2-3 months, but in following the plan the work was done and I just had to put one foot in front of the other.
I had read P&D advanced marathoning, and was looking at the 35-55mpw plan, but I don’t think it’s realistic from a time point of view as it calls for 6 days per week.

Dubgal72

[

ChadHogan wrote: »

Hi All,

I took part in the 2014 novice thread, and found it a hugely valuable resource. I have unfinished business with DCM, only got to 20 miles and an injury I’d had in the 3-4 weeks coming up to the marathon came back to bite me. I’ve done the post-mortem a million times over and I genuinely think if I had done one or two things differently in the build up I’d not have gotten injured and would have finished. So I’ll be hoping to learn from others contributing and will happily let people know if I see them making some of the mistakes I made last year.

What is your athletics background? Have you run before? What other sports have you taken part in and at what level?
Played rugby for about 15 years up to age 30 , in Leinster Junior Leagues. I took it very seriously although there was never danger of an Ireland cap. For the last 3 years more or less I’ve been running, just started out on my own and then did the odd race with a friend and finally joined a club in January –although haven’t attended a single session since February as I’ve been struggling with chest infections and sore throats on and off and have a problematic phlegm issue (EUCH!)im trying to sort at the moment. at the moment i can manage 5 miles easy and 8 miles lsr without it becoming a probem


Have you raced before? If so what are your PBs? (Date and distance please!)
5k: 22:07, - mar 2014
10k: 47:06, Apr 14
10 Mile: 1:17:58,Aug 14.
HM: 1:41:48 Sep 14.

I am quite a way behind this however

Do you still need to take walk breaks in your training ? (No problem if you do)
No
How much training do you currently do ? Distances, cross training - whatever you think is relevant to your current fitness level.
currently getting out on average twice a week at the moment, as I said above I’ve been struggling with illness, and also have a new baby at home but things are starting to settle on both fronts. Last race was Raheny 5 mile in Jan which I ran 38:30 ish I think. I’d say I’m another minute slower than that right now, but nothing a few weeks consistent training won’t fix.

How many days a week can you train?
4-5

What do you want to achieve? Dream finishing time and realistic finishing time? Or just complete it in no specified time?
4 hours, I was on target for 4 hours last year when my foot flared up. If I’m honest I think 4:10 was where id have ended up as the temperature had begun to rise when I hit Terenure, but if I’m injury free and with more favourable conditions I think the 4 hrs is in me.


What marathon programme are you following/intending to use?
Boards plan which I followed last year, I cannot speak highly enough of it. I put my HM pb down to following the plan, really surprised myself that day, as I had done no running faster than 8:45 mins per mile for 2-3 months, but in following the plan the work was done and I just had to put one foot in front of the other.
I had read P&D advanced marathoning, and was looking at the 35-55mpw plan, but I don’t think it’s realistic from a time point of view as it calls for 6 days per week.

Hi chad, welcome back! I knew your name was familiar . Sorry about your experience last year, marathon training really requires a 100% healthy body or you just get bitten by it as you found out.
Hopefully you'll get the chest issues sorted before June 22. Do you see that happening? You'll be able to draw on last year's training to a certain extent but I'm a little concerned that you're cutting it a bit fine, especially for pre-training base building.
Don't hesitate to shelve plans for this year if you're not completely healthy, DCM isn't going anywhere But in the meantime, the very best of luck!

Confused2015

Good Luck

diego_b

Dubgal72 wrote: »

Hi Diego_b, you've had very sound advice there. You say your plan is "based" on Hilditch's plan? So I take it to mean that you have pretty much constructed it yourself to suit your other commitments? It does need quite a bit of tweaking as suggested above so if you want to go back to the drawing board with some help, give us a shout here

I did indeed, it's basically a 16 week plan stretched out with some weeks repeated, altered it by moving the LSRs from the Sunday to the Saturday and moving the rest day to the Sunday and then trying to incorporate Tuesday night training I do already.

If after doing a LSR on a Saturday morning (I'm hoping to do some of these with a running group in my area), would I be okay to do a run on Sunday evening, take a rest day Monday, circuits Tuesday, then run either Wed or Thurs with Friday a rest day. I like the idea of the Active Recovery sessions with some walking so that would nice to do if I had time for another midweek session.

Note I also sent it to a coach in my club and he's advised 3 quality days a week as per what the guys have said earlier. Quality rather than quantity I have heard now a few times!!

In the mean time I'm running 3 times a week at the moment and working through the 30 day challenge, completed day four tonight. Enjoying that, I find I can work really well with things when I have a plan to follow....guess it's the case to get a plan I can work with.

chrislad

My physio mentioned this to me. It might be useful for some people here too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IijQyX_YCKA