Finally!

Ten months on from Ironman UK, back to a scheduled training regimen: no more questioning what time to wake up, how to train on a given day, what I’m doing on a Friday night or whether to down that sweet.  Time again to get to it.

Below is a 16-week program taken from the internet and pared back to meet my lack of run fitness at this point.  After a smashing Kingston run, I had some pain in my right calf, so took three weeks run free.  Never had it looked at, but started back a few weeks ago and all seems ok; however, 2hrs is the most running I’ve done in any week recently.  With that, I altered the program:

- 5hrs total run in week one

- max increase in total run time of 10% in any one week (except after an absorb week, max 25%; setting these limits helps avoid injury)

- Wed easy run is now an easy bike session

- intervals build up more slowly

- added short strength and conditioning on Tue and Thu and easy yoga session on Fri.  

Run time peaks at c. 10hrs in week 13 (estimated 110km/ 68mi) just over the distance I’ll be covering in one day in mid-Sep.

Excited?  You bet.  Anxious?  You bet.  My biggest concern is not the distance of the race, rather getting to the start line without injury.  The largest increase will be from my current level to week one, so I’ll be doubling post-run stretching and resting whenever possible.  If I can make the first couple weeks, should be ok from there (assuming focus on stretch and recovery is kept).

Looking forward to the next 16 weeks.