Or rather, I've downloaded a cunning plan. A plan hopefully even more cunning than Baldrick's one that was as cunning as a fox that has just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford university. It's a plan to get me over the finish line of the London Marathon in four months' time in more or less one piece.Ever since I excitedly announced I'd got into this year's event, experienced runners have been telling me to get a training plan. "Which plan are you on?" I keep getting asked, or "Have you decided on a plan?". It's almost as if I'm preparing to give birth. Now I'm not much of a believer in rigid training plans, as I know I'm not great at sticking to them. Until now I've managed to get by with a training schedule that is effectively:
Week 1 - a) Run as far as you can, b) Weep, c) Think about giving up
Week 2 - a) Run a bit further than last week, b) Over-estimate the rate of your improvement
And so on and so on.
But this marathon business is a bit more serious it seems. So I've given in and chosen one. It's called Run Less, Run Faster and I have to admit I was particularly attracted by the "Run Less" part of the title. Though it turns out it doesn't involve running any less than I do at the moment, it just means doing it a bit more scientifically.
The second is called a "tempo" run, and is apparently the most useful of them all. It starts off with an easy 1 or 2 mile bit, followed by between 2 and 5 miles at "tempo" or "threshold" pace - slightly slower than your fastest 10k pace but faster than normal training pace. For me that entails running for several miles at about 9 minutes per mile (about 5.38 mins per km).
The third is a long run, starting at 8 miles and working up to 20, at training pace (for me, 9.15 mins per mile, or 5.47 mins per km). Even at that pace, which is comfortable, that's a long hard 3-4 hour slog.
Now all this sounds almost reasonable, at least to start with. But there's a twist. You're also supposed to be doing cross-training workouts on your days off. Days off are when I normally try to recover from the run the day before by hobbling around like a 90-year-old with mobility issues. I think I also saw something about following a proper diet, which is also not going to happen.
Anyway, I've already started, sort of, with an 8-mile run, followed about my first tempo run about a week later. A further attempt at running 9 miles was not a huge success - at the moment, it seems, I'm doing one decent run followed by a bad one. This week, however, we really start in earnest. I'll let you know how it goes
