Tag Archives: Plan

The final countdown – 7 days to go.

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It’s the final countdown…

And a reminder of the classic Europe song from 1986…

This time next week it will be over for a few, nearly over for others and a little to still go for a lot.  The London Marathon 2012 – the year of the London Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  What a great year to run 26.2 miles around this amazing city in the biggest charity fund raising event there is with 40k other people!

The training’s nearly done – 15, 17 or 21 weeks hard running.  Now in the final taper stages.  Stretching lots.  Sleeping nicely.  Eating well with a few extra carbs.  And all getting ready for next Sunday – 22nd April.  With a visit to the London Marathon Expo this week to pick up your number and bits.  It’s all getting exciting!

I still need to remind myself what time it starts on Sunday and then recap on plans to get up, eat and get up to London with Mrs. Noble and the kids and my mum & dad in-law as the Noble support crew.

The plan for me for the final 7 days looks like this…

  • Sunday – easy morning karate session; done without injury.
  • Monday – rest day with stretching and core exercises.
  • Tuesday – 6 miles at marathon pace (mp).
  • Wednesday – 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at 30 seconds faster than mp , 1 mile cool down.
  • Thursday – TBC maybe a slow 4 miles.
  • Friday – rest day with stretching and core exercises.
  • Saturday – 2 very easy miles just to keep legs moving.
  • Sunday – it’s race day!

And still going for the last week of charity donations for Whizz-Kidz.  It all helps with the great work that they do for the children that they look after.  All donations still very very gratefully received – just go to my Just Giving page.

Pacing it – 25 miles this week

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Not as many miles as originally planned this week.  The plan was 3 runs of 12, 14 and 6 miles (with the first 2 at marathon pace and the last as faster interval training).  Got off to a good start with 12 miles on Monday at the right pace but had left it too late on Wednesday to do 14 miles so settled for 8 instead (but slower).  And then 5 miles fast (ish) on Thursday evening – all wrapped up and with new running socks like DVT socks (not convinced about these yet – more testing needed).

Do need rethink long runs and how many to do per week and how much time between them.  The plan was to start like this week – with a longish one at the beginning of the week and then the real long one mid-week and then move to one long one on Saturdays over the next month or so.  The 2 mid-week ones are not really practical (and it’s not as much fun running when it’s dark) and don’t leave enough time between them and I need to concentrate on running at pace.  So it’s back to the drawing board and update the plan this weekend.

Training plans

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This week’s all about getting my marathon training plan sorted.

My time back in 2009 was just over 3 hour 46 minutes.  Can I beat it next year?  That’s the plan.  Less than 3 hours 45 minutes would be nice and just under 3 hours 30 minutes even better.  The latter would mean an average pace of around 8 minutes a mile.  A whole minute or so less than what I’m currently doing longer training runs at.  Need to do speed work more and focus on running at my planned pace for the big day.

Lots of different theories as to how long a marathon training plan should be – and of course it’s got to be very specific to you!  They range from 24 week plans – almost 6 months – to 12 weeks in some books I’ve read, to 16 weeks which is more the norm.

The first part of the training is all about building up your mileage and running 4, 5 or then 6 days a week.   The weekly mileage builds up from about 30 to 60 miles, increasing weekly and then tapering off 2 weeks or so before the big day.  Right now I’m around the 24 mile mark, so a bit off where I need to be.  Will get to 30 miles this week!

I also need to factor in karate training – normally twice a week – and how much of that to do and how intensely.  As I did in 2009, most likely that I’ll keep doing karate training as normal until a month or so before and then go really light and drop some sessions until after the race.  And yes take all the sessions lightly to avoid any injuries before!  Karate’s a big part of the fund raising as well and once I’ve sweet talked Sensei Robert, we’ll be holding a another kickathon to help raise money for Whizz-Kidz.

There’s a lot of useful info on the internet about marathon training – the key of course is finding something that suits you, both in terms of your level of fitness and lifestyle.  One very good site I’ve found is on www.wikihow.com where it focuses on how to improve your times and about running at your planned marathon pace, which seems a sound idea!

Stay tuned – will post the actual plan over the next few days.