2009 Training Plan

I've been taking my running slowly, running 3 days a week, 2 miles a day for the past two weeks after a semi-unplanned 3 weeks away from running ('semi' since I was aware that 1) finals + holidays = little time to train and 2) holidays + several rounds of bad weather=university closure=no gym/treadmill access and 'unplanned' because I had hoped to work around all of that). These 6 mile weeks are the first two of my 2009 training program, a self-designed running schedule that runs through December 2009. My program calls for the same 6 miles this next week but will add a mile each day the following week (Jan 12-18th). I run this 9 mile week for three more weeks before adding a mile to Sunday's run (my long run day) as well as a 4th day of running (2 miles), bumping my weekly mileage to 12 miles the first full week of February. As it's written, I continue to gradually progress, to a maximum mileage of 24 miles by mid-July. I sustain this mileage until the 2009 Turkey Trot at which point I drop to what I'm calling my 'winter' mileage (15-20 miles). Throughout all of 2009, I run only 4 days a week, cross-train on 2, and take the 7th off. I don't plan to start workouts until the first full week of April, running only fartleks and tempos until mid-June when I add hills and track workouts. Dotted in the plan are races I hope/plan to run, most of which are listed in the column to the right with the exception of two adventure 12-person relays I hope to run (Spokane to Sandpoint in August 2009 and Reach the Beach in September 2009) provided the money's there to fund them.

Why I like my plan:

• Four days a week of running - I've shown myself that I get bored and tired very quickly and think aiming for four days a week of good running with two days open for other forms of exercise is a good and perhaps more attainable goal than shooting for 5 or 6 days of straight running.
• It drops my mileage in the winter - I'll admit it, I am more of a fairweather runner. This is largely due to the fact that I have exercise-induced asthma that flares up when running in the cold, but I also just generally don't like running in the cold with a million layers on. There's also the New England factor. While it is beautiful here, the winter brings short days and frequent, debilitating storms making running outside challenging. Basically what this all means is that most of the time between December and March I'm running on a treadmill and, since I can't really stand the treadmill for more than 4 miles, lower winter mileage is inevitable.
  
• No more than 5 miles a day a weekdays - I'm a busy grad. student who gets paid to do her research and, while I'd like to, I really shouldn't be taking more than an hour (run+shower) out of my day to run (though apparently it's acceptable to take 9 hours to blog during the workday!).
  
• No more than 9 miles for a long run - Any longer and I get bored.
  

Why I don't like my plan:

• No accountability - I wrote it, who's going to care if I don't do whats written?
• Super slow progression - This is actually really frustrating. Most of me feels like I should go super slow to stay injury free. However, a lot of me is also impatient and eager to get out there and knock out a good, long, hard run. Looking at my program I sometimes think I wrote it as if I have never run in my life, where in fact, I have been running for sometime.
  
• Low weekly mileage - While the mileage comes with the fact that, at my max, I'm running 5 miles 3 days a week and 9 miles one day a week, it's a bit frustrating to stay below 30. At 24 miles/week I don't feel as though I can really run a 10K+ well. While I enjoy 5Ks, I like the idea of getting good at the 10K. I also would like to take on another half marathon and try to run it well, though that would mean stepping up the long run, which is not likely to happen this year. And that marathon I talked about earlier? Definitely not going to happen on this plan (which is probably for the better).
  

I guess I'll stick with what I've written for now. If I stay consistent and start feeling good, maybe then I look to make adjustments. This self-coaching thing is difficult!