How hard can it be!?: Start of the marathon training plan & a spin on the new bike!

Sunday 9 January 2011

Start of the marathon training plan & a spin on the new bike!

Karen has found quite a few Marathon training plans on the net and we've decided to use a few of these as a basis for our own training for the Edinburgh Marathon. Most of the training plans are 20 weeks and we just realised we've got 19 weeks to the Marathon!

A long run at a comfortable pace on a Sunday (progressively more miles as the weeks go by up to about 20 miles).
An easy 3 mile recovery run the day after (Monday).
Cross Training on a Tuesday (Swim training with Total Fitness Triathlon club).
Rest day on a Wednesday
2 to 5 mile 'race pace' mixed in with some Fartlek training on a Thursday (jogging, walking and fast running cycles).
A 4 to 6 mile run on a Friday
Cross training (Cycling) or rest day Saturday.

You can click on the training plan below for the full plan...

Today's 'Long Run' was just over 5 miles at a comfortable pace (56 mins) along the country lanes between Middlewich and Sandbach in crisp sunny weather and felt great.

I then took my new bike out for it's first spin... An amazingly effortless ride :-) 6 miles in 25 minutes.

Why am I doing this?!

I got drawn in to running in 2007 to raise funds for charity and discovered it's a great way to keep in shape! I expanded the fundraising to open water swimming last year and loved that too so this year I'm pushing the envelope and going the whole hog with a couple of triathlons!

I've kept a training blog for the past two years and found it a huge motivator to get out and do something to report on so here I am again!

I'll be keeping a record here of all my training ups and downs as well as a few deviations on my hobbies.

I'm planning a few events this year for my own benefit and two major events to raise funds again for two charities that mean a lot to me:

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution ~ http://www.rnli.org/

In September 2007 I had an accident whilst sailing my Laser Pico dinghy out at sea off Abersoch, North Wales. The Abersoch crew came to my aid and I'll be eternally grateful ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6edftmHtg

I spend a lot of time out at sea with family and friends and it made me realise just how dependent we are on this life saving volunteer emergency service funded entirely by charity.

I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise funds for the Abersoch RNLI station in 2008 & 2009 and continued last year with a one mile open water at The Great Salford Swim.

This year I'm rolling it all up and expanding the RNLI fund raising challenge by taking on the Tatton Triathlon Olympic Distance event on Sunday 11th September. It's a 1,500 mtr swim in open water followed by a 38km bike ride and then a 10km run!