Our friend Mary had some significant health issues this past week. Accordingly, we've made this week's schedule very gentle so that she can recover and also make sure that everything is working OK so that she can resume normal training. Everything on this schedule is meant to be restorative.
Wed - Treadmill run, 30-45mins, 1% incline, keep heart rate between 130-150bpm. Take walking breaks if heart rate goes over 150bpm.
- Spin class - wear heart monitor, anything below 145bpm is fine, but nothing over 145bpm!
Fri - Active recovery…walk…light exercises if you feel like it.
Sat - 45-60mins very easy…take little walk breaks here and there so that you never get overly fatigued. Wear monitor and don't go over 140bpm, if you can hack wearing the monitor again. Otherwise, go by feel.
Sun - My first recommendation is that you do not race and instead run for an hour. However, if you are dead set on racing, go with the usual plan of a long warm-up and a slow start. Maybe see how you are feeling before deciding whether to do the race or not.
I'm coaching a young lady who would like to run the Hyannis half marathon in late February/early March this year. I'm going to post her training schedule here. Thought you might find it interesting to follow along.
The woman I am coaching...let's call her Mary Half...or Mary for short...is 32 years old. She has a fairly extensive background in swimming, triathlons and running. Her job is physically active and she does very little sitting. She's also a personal trainer so she knows how to exercise with correct form. She is naturally gifted with endurance but lacking in explosive speed. She is well suited to long duration events.
Her schedule is very restricted. She's at work by 6:30AM and out after 4:00PM...when it's dark. She prefers not to run in the dark and she has a fairly lengthy commute to work. She teaches spin class on Wednesday evenings and does a swim workout on Thursday night that she loves and wants to keep. She also has access to treadmills and gym equipment.
Mary is currently running a little over 10 miles a week...a couple of 2mi runs during the week and a couple of 3.5mi runs on the weekends. Most of her free time is on the weekends. She would like to participate in...but not necessarily race...the CCAC Grand Prix racing series that goes for another 5-6 weeks.
Mary suffered a serious stress fracture while training for an Ironman. She finished the Ironman on the stress fracture but it took its toll. Mary seems to be healthy now and is enthusiastic about beginning to train with more focus.
Even though we are severely limited by time constraints and commitments, we feel we can still make progress and that Mary can run the half marathon safely and with a satisfactory performance. As an aside, Mary expressed interest in running an ultramarathon in the not-to-distant future.
Our goal at this point is simply to increase her aerobic volume and improve her fat burning system....in a deliberate and step-by-step fashion.
30secs jump rope (quick, like on hot coals).
Wed - PM - 45mins treadmill run as follows (wear heart monitor): 15mins with max pulse of 140bpm and incline at 1%, then 1min break, then 25mins with max pulse of 150bpm and incline of 1-2%, then 5min cool-down.
Sun - CCAC Grand Prix - 30mins easy before race, then…hopefully without too long a break…run race with very conservative start…a little faster than training pace…let pace build as run goes on…run last mile or two approaching race effort. Do 10min easy jog shortly after finishing.
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