Monday, February 04, 2008

10K Training Plan

Well, I have a plan!

My target race is the Winter Park Road Race, a local 10K event. I did a search on line and decided to give Hal Higdon's Intermediate plan a try. My challenge will be sticking to the schedule since there is only one rest day in the schedule. In general, the schedule looks like this:

Monday: 3 mile run and strength training
Tuesday: Run (3 to 6 miles)
Wednesday: Either tempo run or interval training
Thursday: 3 or 4 mile run and strength training
Friday: REST
Saturday: 60 min cross train
Sunday: 4-8 mile run

The plan happens to be 8 weeks long which is exactly how long I have until the WPRR. Seemed like a good reason to try it out! My training over the past 2 years has been a homemade integration of various training plans...designed to work around my schedule. This time I am going to try to work my schedule around the plan - with a combination of morning and midday runs. Maybe this combination will get me to a PR :-)

My only concern is to see how my PF (Plantar Fasciitis) does. I am going to push through the training, and if the PF gets to be a problem, I may replace the Monday and/or Thursday run with 30 or so minutes on the elliptical. I am not a fan of the elliptical machine, but it does give me the cardio without the foot pain.

Day 1: I ran 3.34 miles at noontime today - the temperature was around 80 degrees - which made for a rather hot run. I finished in 36:46, an average 11 min/mi pace. I walked a bit more toward the end as my heart rate was around 170 bpm in the final 2 miles. AHR was 167 (anaerobic - 85% max) and MHR was 187 (99% max). Still, I felt good on the run - a bit out of breath, but felt strong. In my weight training, I did two sets with the legs and 3 sets with the upper body, with a stab at some core work with planks and crunches until I felt the burn. My heart rate stayed in the aerobic zone for much of my weight training, giving me more calorie burn. 1 day down!

Next post - weight, body fat and BMI.

5 comments:

Maddy said...

It sounds like your plan is well-thought out and it's doable too. I hope your PF stays away and you continue to be strong. I think by sticking to it (and modifying when needed) will surely get you a PR at the WPRR.

It will be a great race!

MarathonChris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Good luck. I am interested to see your results. I am also using a Hal plan as I train for my half marathon...he has an intermediate half-marathon plan.

Petraruns said...

I have used Hal Higdon for my marathon training twice now and am using it this time as well - I think his plans are very workable and do-able. His website and the various discussion boards (once you've worked through the various user-unfriendly registration bits) are very very useful as well. Good luck! And he's got a specific Chicago marathon training plan as well.. Just saying...

Mike said...

Nice to see more people using Hal Higdon's training plans... my Aunt (who really got me started running) recommended his plans to me, and they have been great!

Keep up the great training!