So, it’s been a couple of weeks since my birthday and I have managed to continue running every other day, and I have been eating well and generally feeling good. The running has been a good outlet for blowing off steam from personal matters as well.
If you search online for help on how to run a marathon, you will find many different training regimens and opinions. I am comfortable with creating my own regimen for now, at least until I run a half-marathon, which I hope to do by xmas or so.
My current regimen is to do three types of runs each week:
1. a “regular” run at a comfortable pace, with intervals (ie., breaks for walking) if need be, probably between 5 and 7K at this point.
2. speed training. A 10-minute jog followed by 4 intervals of running fast for 500 metres and then walking for two minutes. After the intervals, another jog to cool off.
3. distance training. I will typically do this on the weekend since it requires the most time. The idea is to gradually build the total distance one can run without pain. So far I am trying to do it without breaks either, which isn’t a problem if I run slow enough. I do bring water though. My last “long” run was about 8.75 K. As a rule one should do 10% more distance each week, so this weekend I will be shooting for a little under 9.5.
Mathematically speaking, if I just keep doing the 10% rule, I will be running a marathon in 18 weeks. I’m not in that much of a hurry; plus winter is coming, so I will probably take it easy as the temperature drops. I do like running outside in the winter though, and I don’t like treadmills, so hopefully it won’t make too much of a difference.
Some people also like to do hill training, where you basically charge up a hill as fast as you can and then walk back down. I have done this in the past and it is not much fun. Fortunately the places where I train have a good amount of hills anyway, but on days like today where the schedule works out to an extra training day in the week, perhaps I will use those for hill training every other week.
The next thing I need to do is figure out a cross-training regimen for my off days. Since I also want to do more surfing from now on, a logical option is swimming; but unfortunately I am not the strongest swimmer and Aquatic Centre memberships are expensive. Maybe I should just take lessons and be done with it. We’ll see. There is also the bike, of course, while the weather is warm enough.
