Man on a long run

Training Plan 1

113

TRAINING PTS

18

WEEKS

5

SESSIONS PW

4

RUNS PER WEEK

RATINGS

ENDURANCE 90%
SPEED 60%
MENTAL 70%
RECOVERY 90%
STRENGTH 70%
FLEXIBILITY 30%
OVERALL 68.33%

COACH SUMMARY

The first thing I would say to all my new runners is this plan is just a template. The beauty of working me is I set sessions weekly. Half the time for different reasons, scheduling, niggles, progress, I’ll change the sessions that are in the plan for something different. So that spreadsheet, that’s more for my eyes than yours. The dashboard is where you’ll be focused on.

But what has led me to create this plan? Firstly training pts. Building up to the HHM you averaged 96 per week, this plan has a target of 113. So straight away you can see from the numbers you’re working harder. Even more so because in the build up to HHM you acquired a lot of those points doing your easy runs too fast. That’s a mistake we want to avoid. Working to heart rate on the easy runs is smart just to ensure you are getting maximum aerobic benefit but also not to tire yourself out. If you keep the easy runs easy, 4 runs per week, including 2 sessions should be fine.

I’ve plugged in the races, Bournemouth half being the key one. I always work back from race day and put in key half marathon sessions a few weeks out (5-4-3-2-1 km). Then going back those half marathon sessions are slightly easier. So your progressing gradually. You’ll notice week 1 the target is 106pts, week 15 we get up to 122.

I know I mentioned threshold, and we can definitely work to heart rate but I’m getting some negative feedback and data from the team trying those sessions. So for now I’m going to stick to what has brought my runners success and that’s focusing on specific race pace in the build up. The more you practice the pace in training the more comfortable you should feel on race day.

Obviously as you get fitter, your training paces may adapt as well. So the half marathon pace in week 5 may well be different to that in week 16.

My model ensures consistent work load, week in week out. And I think that’s why it works so well. I pride myself in variety too. Different sessions most week to keep it interesting. Again something threshold training doesn’t really allow for. We are hobby runners at the end of the day, it needs to be enjoyable.

You mentioned your lack of flexibility. I’ve put two stretching sessions in there, I sit at my computer way too much and my hips and glutes are awful as a result so I stretch at least 5 times per week, so you might want to do more if you have time.

Then I’ll get you trying one of the home workout sessions I have on the platform and we can see how that goes.

As requested we have 4 runs per week, 2 rest days, parkrun every week and some S&C. I really like this plan. I’m excited to work with you and build a strong relationship which will hopefully lead to you enjoying your running more than ever before.

If you improve in the process (most of my runners do) then even better. Any questions just ask. Let’s do this.

SHORT TERM GOALS

Consistency
Better aerobic base

Main short term goal is to become consistent in running each week with an aim to increase my aerobic base. Slightly out of the 12-16week range, but would like to aim to approximately match my current HM PB (1:45) at the Bournemouth half marathon in October. Most recent HMs I have felt I have struggled towards the ends of the races and so what I would love to be able to achieve is to get to – or pretty much to – my HM PB at Bournemouth but knowing I’ve run it strongly; a perfect result would be getting to the last few km knowing I have something left in the tank and then see what happens – but it is the goal of seeing my aerobic base increase that is the main target for the shorter term rather than concentrating on a time.

LONG TERM GOALS

Half Marathon PB

Longer term, consistency again is the key as in the past I have usually trained well for a race and then dropped to very little running for the following months, then start again for another race. Medium term would like to beat my HM PB and then longer term would be to just keep working that down – it’s my favourite distance so is the one I’d like to mainly focus on getting faster at. Part of that is not only the physical capability of getting faster, but also the mental – in the last 2 HMs I have done I have struggled physically near the end for the target pace (which was almost certainly too fast) but it was mainly then a mental collapse caused by that which dropped me way off target – so working to increase that resilience would be a really good goal.

Getting a sub-20 5k would be nice, but it’s not a primary goal.

At some point would like to do more ultras (did a 62k last year as a first one) – there is a lot of ‘life’ to work that round, so we’ll see, but I really enjoyed the one I have done.