Preliminary warning: Cute photos have nothing to do with the subject matter of this post!
First, I want to thank anyone who has given training advice to me here. Any and all suggestions are always welcome (honesty and disagreement is OK)! Feel free to leave as many as you like in that little box labeled "comments" below.
Obviously, by the title of this post, I still am undecided about how to best train for Boston. In a way, I think that's good. It shows that I don't want to blindly go into a marathon. However, it's also bad because I really would like not to be still weighing my options at this point.
Boston is 17 weeks away. That may seem like a long time to some people, but the more you look at training plans for Marathons, the more you see a pattern of 16, 18 or 22 weeks. Some are even 6 months or a year.
Why so long? The "experts" in the field create phases within training that include endurance building, peaking, sharpening and tapering (and maybe I missed some others!). Sure, you can run a marathon without all these phases, but my goal isn't just to finish. It will be almost a year since my last (and first) marathon and it might be another year until the next. (But I hope NOT). Putting it simply, I will put as much of myself into this race as I can. It is a PR goal race.
As of Sunday, I started Pfitz's (Pfitzinger & Scott) 18 week plan that tops at 70 MPW, (aka 18/70). The total mileage for this first week is 54, which is actually a cutback from what I ran (not on a plan) the week before. I have toyed with the idea of just adding 5 miles to each week, starting next week. Not sure this is a great idea, but would maybe be just the right boost.
I have another issue with Pfitz, something I consider more important than the mileage. His plan schedules races as part of the training. It's never seemed wise (to me) to truly race while training for another key race. (Kara Goucher can do it, though, and it looks like she will with the PF Chang RnR half and Boston). My body needs time to recover from racing and I usually take a few days off even after a hard 10K.
I don't want to feel pressured to run a long run the day following a race. Pfitz schedules it. *This is where I should insert that I am still reading his book.* It appears he might advise you to run the races as Lactate Threshold runs instead of "true races". If so, that's better; but, I still wouldn't spend money to go do an organized Lactate Threshold run. I'd do it for free on my home turf.
Another option I have considered is following one of Jack Daniels plans. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you which one, because I have only recently bought the book, and am confused as to which level of plan I should use. Ha! :/ His plans are based more on experience, and not so much on mileage. I have about 2 1/2 years of running experience (not counting goofing around on and off before that). Where does that put me? I don't know. I like that there appears to be some flexibility in his plan. There are scheduled workouts for each week, but the rest of the mileage is flexible. I can't even tell you how many speedwork days there are each week! One problem is that the plan(s) start 22 weeks from the race. Oops. I missed that window!
Then there's RunnersWorld's SmartCoach, which is considered to be lame by some. But when you start playing with 55 mile weeks starting, and throw in some race times and goal paces that get harder, it doesn't look so easy. The max with that plan is actually a bit higher than Pfitz. The increases of mileage are steeper. I have considered using the mileage plan and changing the speedwork from one to to two days with progressive long runs & MP runs on alternating weeks...Or something like that. And maybe a few 22 milers instead of 20. This plan is for 16 weeks.
Then there's the plan that someone emailed me this week, which is also interesting!
As you can see...I am still not settled in what I am doing. I sure hope by next week to have a better plan- or at least get comfortable with Pfitz!
This might be the most boring post I have ever made. Ha! If you are still with me at this point you deserve some dessert:
