1st week done

on Monday, November 5, 2007 at 9:51 PM

The plan called for an 8 mile run on Friday which I was going to do in the evening since I did a LT run the Thursday night the day before, but I didn't get back home till late and my stomach was still full from going out so I tried to do it Saturday morning. Still wasn't able to do it and ended up going in the afternoon. Averaged about 8 min/mile with a couple of strides thrown in. Strides felt weird. Definitely have lost the speedy feeling while doing them which makes me kinda worried about the track intervals that the plan wants this week.

Did 12 miles on Sunday afternoon also at about 8 min/mile. The last training cycle, I think I got lazy on my long runs and was doing my longs runs at a fairly slow pace. This cycle I'm going to try and aim for 8min/mile and hope that by the end of this cycle, I'm doing faster than 8 min/mile.

I've been reading up on the Runner's World Run Less Run Faster book which outlines the FIRST training plan. The plan says to only run three times a week but to also do two cross-training sessions. The book is mostly about the FIRST plan but also has a lot of good running information in general and contains cross-training workouts which most running books seem to ignore. The one thing that I like is that it gives a fairly detailed plan and paces depending on what one's Boston time is. It also gives guidelines about one should be capable of before one attempts one of these plans. For a 3:10 marathon, they suggest that I should be able to run either:

1) 19:30 5k
2) 40:50 10k or
3) 1:30:25 half

They also say that I should be able to complete one of the following track workouts:
6x800m @ 2:52
5x1000m @ 3:37
4x1200 @ 4:24 or
3x1600m @6:01

I'm pretty sure I can't do any of the above at the moment. The last track workout I did during my previous Pfitz cycle had me doing 3x1600m intervals @ 6:20 so trying to knock 20s off that is highly unlikely, so it looks like the FIRST plan is not quite feasible at the moment.

Going to try and get out tomorrow morning for a 9 mile run. I'm going to have to be able to do it eventually...

4 comments:

yumke said...

Looks like a tough program. I have the Daniels book and it's looking very complicated. Lots of chapters dedicated to theory. Gonna have to read it a bit more.

L*I*S*A said...

I still think the premise behind the FIRST program is good. Perhaps you can tweak it to meet your needs for now...you can always tailor things.

Triseverance said...

I like the sound of this and look forward to watching you go through it. With Boston still a lifetime goal, I know I want to run another marathon sometime and am already wondering how my body will adapt back from the change I want to put it through with multisport. First seems like more of a reasonable transistion then jumping right back into Pfitz.

Quinto Sol said...

I 'follow' the workouts but more often than not, I change one aspect or another.

For example, the speedwork is always three miles, so if I am not feeling like running 3X1600, I run 12X400, or a mix of distances. Also, I use McMillan for paces - for as you already pointed out FIRST times are tough.

I do try to run long runs at what the program suggests.

temp