Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Half Marathon Training Schedule

As I have previously mentioned, I have decided to run my first half marathon on September 18th. This morning I woke up feeling particularly motivated to step up my exercise a notch, so after much deliberation and scrutiny, I have created myself a comprehensive training schedule up until the race (sorry the font on the schedule is kinda small and blurry). Typing up a schedule like this might seem a little overkill for people less OCD than myself, but for me it was just the motivation I needed! With daily workouts planned and in writing my goal seems much more attainable and any excuse not to perform that day's work goes out the window.
 
For those who may be curious, here is my running background:
I ran cross country, winter track, and spring track throughout all 4 years of high school. I only ran occasionally when it was nice out after that, my workouts at the gym in college were usually a combination of elliptical, swimming, strength training, and/or cardio bosu. My knees are apparently prone to dislocation, and sophomore year of college my right knee did just that. After physical therapy, my knee doc and I decided it was best to get this problem permanently fixed, so that summer I had two screws put in the knee to keep it in line. This took months of using a locking knee brace and physical therapy to recover from. I believe it was the next summer that my knee was healthy enough to get the screws taken out (everything was locked where it needed to be, so the screws were no longer necessary). This time my knee didn't recover as well from physical therapy.. I think I got lazy with it because the surgery wasn't nearly as bad as the first time. I still continued to run every now and then... as much as 3 miles 3x a week during warm weather months. Ever since I started CrossFit, I had 3 trainers point out to me that my knee mobility has greatly improved. Prior to getting this schedule in place, I've been running 6 miles once a week and am currently working on getting that time under an hour. 

A couple things I wanted to point out about the thought behind the schedule: 
- I modeled the schedule after this one combined with one I found on Runner's World  
- Rest day randomly on Tuesdays: This is the night of my grad class... even though I'm not taking any over the summer, I figured I should keep it consistent with my schedule the rest of the year.  
- Long run days on Sundays, increasing in mileage up until the race  
- Four CrossFit days a week: hopefully the perfect amount to get sufficient strength & cross training in without my body wanting to kill me. I would do CrossFit everyday if it didn't make me so damn sore :)  
- Three running days a week: I initially wanted to run 4 days, but it was hard to realistically schedule. This should be enough for me, but I could always add to the schedule if I feel like I need to.   
- The "taper week" before the race is not finalized yet, I'll probably be changing it around after I do some more research and depending on how I'm feeling that week.

Paleo diet update:
Last night I totally destroyed my 30-day challenge with whole wheat margarita pizza with chicken PLUS some cookie cake for dessert, rationalized by telling myself that I was celebrating my new puppy. Remember how earlier I mentioned I was feeling extra motivated this morning? Well this is why! After a lot of feeling angry with myself, I decided to turn it around and use this experience to push me to avoid slip-ups in the future. I deserve to be happy, and I know that for me the way to do that is to get myself healthy. I plan on continuing eating 100% Paleo, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the challenge. Should I start fresh with a new 30 days? Finish these 30 days knowing I had that cheat meal? Nix the challenge altogether? Help me out here!

5 comments:

Dana said...

It looks like a great training schedule. Mine was very similiar, the only difference is I never really did any. whoops.

and no one is perfect, dont kill yourself over 1 meal! just bounce back stronger, which it looks like you already did.

happy running! I may have to join you a few times.

ronnib said...

Don't beat yourself up; that's no way to be happy and healthy. Just resume your paleo and forget about your meal of sin.

Ariana said...

You would make a calendar! I'm only surprised it's not color coded...

Agreed with everyone, don't beat yourself up about one meal - You're even more on track than ever so you should just continue on your 30 days challenge :)

Kelly said...

Haha! Ariana: I had those EXACT words run through my mind when I saw Kate's calendar :-)

Kate: I think you will go nuts if you don't allow yourself the freedom of occasional slip ups! As long as they are occasional,you'll be fine.

So excited to read about all your exercise! Just a word of caution: be careful with those knees! Peter's mom was a huge runner (ran like crazy her whole life), and now that she is in her 50s, she is in great shape...but she can't run anymore! Her knees are ruined. So definitely have fun and be healthy and do the marathon stuff, but just be careful to avoid injury and burn-out! I'm sure you know this already haha--just thought I would remind you :-)

Kate said...

lol unsurprisingly I had it all decked out with highlighting and colors, but then I remembered that my black and white laser printer would not print that :P

Thanks for the feedback, I'm back on track for my 30 days.. a new recipe will be coming later tonight (that will hopefully look more appetizing than past recipes!)

Dana - I hope you can join me! Now that you know my schedule down to the day, just let me know if you want to!!

Kelly - I'm being careful, I promise!! :) My running will be replaced with other exercises as soon as Cross Country season is over and it gets cold outside. Right now my knees are doing really well... I think all the squats I've been doing for CrossFit have really helped.