Training updates are back again! Last year it was half marathon updates which rolled right into olympic triathlon updates and all that stretched on for 5 months! This year it’s a scant two and a half months and we’re done. If your a keen Sweat Sweetly reader you already know from my 2019 season plan post I’m going to do a sprint too. Since then $hit has changed though. Namely instead of doing a half with the entire step-family I will be doing it by myself, sad face! I also said way back when I published my bare minimum plan that I would likely never do it. Well less than a year later here we are. So as is traditional around these parts update one is for explaining what I’m doing, how I’m doing it and to whatever extent is possible, why I’m doing it.
Why the bare minimum plan this time?
Well I’m glad you asked. I really, really wanted to do a sprint this year and I did initially get roped into what looked like it would be a very slow half marathon. So past me thought okay, lots of time on your feet, add one mega bike ride a week and lots of post run evening swims and bam, you’ll kill your sprint time. As long as I get my bike professionally fixed after last year. I’m dropping it off today so yeah! So I’ll put it out there that I’m going for a PR there this time the half well maybe not so much. Actually I haven’t figured out what my goals are there other then to rock an easy to run in pirate outfit, I see another tutu coming on… I’m thinking I’ll figure out if a PR is in the cards closer to the big day.
You might ask “why not just run the 10k with everyone else in your family?” That is a good question to which I only sort of have a good answer. The not so good part is now it’s in my head I pretty much have to do it. The second part is that I had planned my season around it as a doable way to get my fitness up to a sprint level. You might also be saying “but you have a sprint training plan, why not just do that?” Another good question! Well I felt like my running was at a place this year where I could really move to the next level and at the time a slow half and sprint wasn’t quite enough for me so I wanted to sign up for and have a few attempts this year at a PR in the 5k and 10k. Even with a half and a sprint my season will be over on September 15th and that leaves me in great shape for some shorter, hopefully lighting fast fall races.
The nitty gritty of the schedule
So… sprint on August 25th right before peak week, that will count as at least my long run that week and I’ll be considering the speed work that week too. Along the way I’ll be running a 10k at a race I’ve already registered for at the start of August as my speedwork that week and hopefully be doing a 65 km bike ride in about two weeks (maybe). Writing that out sounds like not such a great plan after all so we’ll see. I’ll be adding a 20, 30 then 40 km bike ride to the schedule on cross training day each week to secure some time in the saddle. Most of this plan is 3 runs a week, two less than I’m used to in half training. As much as my schedule allows I’ll also be experimenting with this new idea of running twice a day in training this time (and writing about it if it actually happens) so stay tuned. Mondays and Tuesdays are mostly off so I think Tuesdays will be bike days, Wednesdays are for speedwork, a shakeout/recovery on Saturday (or Friday) and a long runs on Sunday. I think that schedule will work well for me and I won’t have to do too much customizing this plan (I did write it after all) this time but you know I’ll be working the forecast into it like every week.
Getting stuff and getting stuff done
I’m optimistically (unrealistically) thinking right now that since there are on average 1.5 less runs a week (never mind that bike ride thing) I’ll have more time to get stuff done this cycle. Apparently I’ve blocked out all that good ‘what a triathlon taught me’ advice last year about it adding a boatload of errands to your life. But my big things in life to do list is long, really long right now. With honey gone for a bit I am trying to check some of that off. So I deep cleaned the car, sent out some estimates to family, caught up on a side hustle, did a tough mud run and wrote a bunch. See how I snuck that super fun thing in there. I’m well stocked on everything I need including shoes, although I’ll need a new kicks when it’s all over. No current plans to deep clean the house though!
So starting next week get ready to see what my weekly work outs look like again for a bit! Next week I’ll let you all know how this week’s training went and post in the comments if you’re doing you’re 1/2 or full or whatever training along with me! You can download my bare minimum 1/2 marathon training plan here!
Sweat Sweetly 
Leave a Reply