I get really excited when someone is new to running and new to Hastings. Because I know if you stick with it, what lies await. From my experience it’s happiness.

Granted at times the actual running itself can be challenging, but if you throw yourself in, you are going to meet so many amazing people. The running community is incredible.

I’m really pleased you’ve given me this opportunity to guide you on this journey and hopefully I can help introduce you to lots of new people, some exciting training sessions and make running a really enjoyably past time.

The plan is quite simple. The big numbers on the spreadsheet are Training Load (Time or Distance x Effort Level). It’s a better way of creating consistent and progressive plans than simply using mileage as your metric.

To be honest you don’t need to worry about the plan itself. The likelihood is it will change as most runners progress at different levels so I’m always adapting the sessions. In 8 weeks time the plan might look completely different.

Your main focus will just be the dashboard and the sessions set out for the following week. You can reschedule them to best fit your lifestyle.

Intervals will be a key element of this training plan. I coach Hastings Runners track session on Monday evenings. I also coach a Team Orange (PB Runner) session on Tuesday evenings. Both are 6:15-7:30pm. If you can do either of those each week that would be my recommendation, simply because running the harder sessions with other people is far more motivating.

Hastings Runners offer 2 free track sessions for non-members so you can trial that out first. I would highly recommend joining Hastings Runners. 95% of my clients are members and some of them have joined on my recommendation and love it. Again it’s about meeting new people and most of them are great.

Each week intervals will be complimented with an easy run (normally 60 minutes). Hastings Runners do a 60 minute club run on Wednesday evenings which is very popular. And one of my good friends leads a small group Wednesday mornings at 9:15 for 60 mins.

The 3rd run will be a long run or a half marathon based session. There is another Hastings Runners group every Sunday at 8am. It’s 120 minutes. It’s a wide range of abilities. Some run 14 miles in 2 hours, others just 10. We always stick close by with the quicker runners looping back on the route. So this would be a good session to do some of your long runs with and again you’ll meet some great people. Most weeks I will be leading this group.

If you can compliment your 3 runs with a HIIT session each week I’m happy that covers the S&C base for now. If you find that doesn’t happen then I can look to create a workout you can do from home. But S&C once a week is important.

I think that’s it. Any questions just ask. Let’s do this!!

PS: If you’ve not done Hastings Half Marathon before it’s amazing, the support is always incredible. For me it’s like Christmas Day.