The Plan

I finally have a marathon training plan!  Can you sense my excitement??  Clearly, I’m a girl that needs some direction in my life.

My coach at Runner’s Edge sent a training plan for my goal race (The Colfax Marathon) with 5 different training levels.  They differ by goals and by experience, from wanting to finish your first marathon to wanting a specific goal time after many marathons.

I’m training on Level 3, defined as:

• Goal: To finish the marathon within a certain time (Breaking 4 hours!)
• Plan: 4-5 planned workouts a week, 3 runs of 20+ miles
• Recommended background: Experienced distance runner with average weekly base of 18 miles in the last 3 weeks
• At least one 7 mile workout in the past 3 weeks

I think I would be up to level 4 if I hadn’t taken so much time off in the last few months.  But I can think about using that plan if I go for a fall marathon.  I’m excited about this training plan because it has a variety of workouts, including:

• Recovery workouts
• Semi-long workouts
• Long workouts
• Hill workouts
• Goal pace workouts
• Long fast workouts
• Short fast workouts
• Cross-training

All of these should keep the training plan interesting!  The training plan is also divided into 3 sections: endurance, speed and taper.

Unfortunately, I missed the team long run on Saturday because I put in the wrong address in my GPS.  When I arrived at the wrong destination, it was too late to make it to the right place on time.  I was pretty annoyed since I had woken up so early for nothing.  Instead of my long run, I did a few relaxed miles with Leela.

Luckily, I had new running buddies Lauren, Erin and Marco who were up for a 10 mile run on Sunday.  We ran on Cherry Creek Trail on a gorgeous, sunny morning and the miles flew by.