The Plan of Attack!

After an enforced week off, partly spent in a remote West African desert city, I have come up with a plan of attack for Dublin. I am not usually one to establish a training programme for a particular event; I run because I like it. However I have always had a vague mental plan of approximately how far I should be running. Now it is a vague written plan instead.

In my rowing days, we used a ‘2 week cycle.’ The start of the cycle was a row on the Monday after a weekend event. For the first week of the cycle, we would row long and hard – a particular ‘favourite’ of the coach was 10 x 500m sprints, only stopping for long enough to turn the boat round in between each one, to build speed.

The second week was a taper – rows would be long, but with less speed work, and getting shorter towards the end of the week. We usually had the Friday off and raced on Saturday.

So in contrast to previous marathon campaigns, I will try an approximately 2 week cycle approach. I have also entered a few races over the next 5 months as follows:

June 12^th – Christianshavnermilen (7.5km)

June 18th – Brolobet – across the bridge to Sweden (21.1km)

July 3^rd - Christianshavnermilen (7.5km)

August 28^th – DHL Statfeten (5 x 5km relay)

October 1^st – Powerade half marathon (21.1 km)

October 30^th – Dublin Marathon (42.2km)

I will take another week ‘off’ running now to ensure a proper recovery, and then start a moderate 2 week cycle with the Brolobet as the end point. The aim there will be merely to finish within the spread of my previous half marathons (1 hr 24 min – 1 hr 29 min).

We then enter the 2 week cycles. July’s ‘Christianshavnermilen’ is at the end of the second.

3rd – 15^th July – 3^rd cycle

16^th – 22^nd July – ‘half cycle’

23^rd – 31^st July – off on holiday!

1^st – 13^th August – 4^th cycle

14^th – 27^th August – 5^th cycle

28^th August – 8^th September – 6^th cycle (incorporating the DHL relay)

9^th September – 12^th September - off

13^th September – 30^th September – 7^th (long) cycle - Powerade half marathon at the end. Aim to beat half marathon record of 1 hr 24 min 27 sec.

1^st October – 15^th October – 8^th cycle

16^th October – 30^nd October – 9^th cycle – though tapering throughout.

I am not putting specific km – targets onto the cycles as there is no telling how each one will actually pan out with other non-running activities. However the overall aims are to keep steady – say around 30km per week, up to the holiday week at the end of July, then build up thereafter. In the 7^th cycle – slightly longer than 2 weeks to bring the dates into line – I would expect to be running 70 – 80km per week.