This week’s all about getting my marathon training plan sorted.

My time back in 2009 was just over 3 hour 46 minutes.  Can I beat it next year?  That’s the plan.  Less than 3 hours 45 minutes would be nice and just under 3 hours 30 minutes even better.  The latter would mean an average pace of around 8 minutes a mile.  A whole minute or so less than what I’m currently doing longer training runs at.  Need to do speed work more and focus on running at my planned pace for the big day.

Lots of different theories as to how long a marathon training plan should be – and of course it’s got to be very specific to you!  They range from 24 week plans – almost 6 months – to 12 weeks in some books I’ve read, to 16 weeks which is more the norm.

The first part of the training is all about building up your mileage and running 4, 5 or then 6 days a week.   The weekly mileage builds up from about 30 to 60 miles, increasing weekly and then tapering off 2 weeks or so before the big day.  Right now I’m around the 24 mile mark, so a bit off where I need to be.  Will get to 30 miles this week!

I also need to factor in karate training – normally twice a week – and how much of that to do and how intensely.  As I did in 2009, most likely that I’ll keep doing karate training as normal until a month or so before and then go really light and drop some sessions until after the race.  And yes take all the sessions lightly to avoid any injuries before!  Karate’s a big part of the fund raising as well and once I’ve sweet talked Sensei Robert, we’ll be holding a another kickathon to help raise money for Whizz-Kidz.

There’s a lot of useful info on the internet about marathon training – the key of course is finding something that suits you, both in terms of your level of fitness and lifestyle.  One very good site I’ve found is on www.wikihow.com where it focuses on how to improve your times and about running at your planned marathon pace, which seems a sound idea!

Stay tuned – will post the actual plan over the next few days.