Shamrock Marathon – Virginia Beach, VA March 16, 2013
This will be Lindsey’s return to racing. By the time this marathon gets here it will be nearly two years since she has had the opportunity to fully race a marathon. I am excited for her to get that opportunity again.
Over the last couple of weeks, really ever since Marshall got here, we had been discussing what her training would like. The consistent theme that I heard was “I want to challenge myself.”
Hearing and saying all that is one thing the important step is how to execute on that goal. A key to making that happen is a plan for how to get there.
Here is that plan:
You will notice in the second week of training Lindsey is going to run a marathon. Probably not ideal but we can make that work. She will be heading out to Delaware for a long weekend with her sisters which will include a “nice and easy” marathon. It will be a good trip. Lindsey being an experienced marathon runner can handle this stress on her body and we just need to modify the first couple of weeks with some additional rest days coming into and out of the marathon and then nothing but easy runs for the remainder of week 3 and all of week 4 to allow her body to recover.
Starting in Week 5 again we will return to a 5 days a week with Easy, Easy, Tempo/Speed, Easy, Long being the pattern of the weeks. This will continue throughout the cycle. You will notice that on all the ‘Easy’ or ‘Long’ days I have given Lindsey a range to stay within. This will help provide her with the mental reassurance that if she is not feeling it one day there is no harm in slowing down a little.
With Lindsey not having raced in slow long it has been sort of a challenge to determine an appropriate pace for some of the Tempo and Speed work but based off the Half Marathon see ran 6 weeks after returning to running and the BQ she ran at the Indy Monumental in early November I am comfortable that we have found the appropriate pace to push her while still providing the needed stimulus to make the “jump”.
You will notice in Week 10 that the long run is calling for a ‘Progression Run’. This is where the first 10 miles or so are ran toward the low end of the Long Run pace and then the second half is run at almost race pace. It approaches race pace but not completely there. These sorts of session are great for mental training and building efficiency and strength your running.
The final block of her training will see another ‘Progression Run’ but at a much shorter distance as to wear her down too much.This block will also begin with the highest mileage week she will see in the entire cycle. Four weeks out will be hard on the body but will provide the needed stimulus to ride that wave to race day while at the same day being far enough out as to not ‘break her ‘before the marathon.
Given everything that has been lied out above and knowing Lindsey’s mental toughness I have full belief that come March 16th it will be a great day to race and she will see that big break through PR. 3:15:00 will be the easy part…all the work will have already been done.
-Be Consistent.
Glenn
