My Training Plan

I’ve had a lot of questions about my training plan, especially since it has one 22 mile run included on it (most training plans only go up to about 20 miles).  I’m using the training plan out of this book:

It’s a hilarious MUST READ for any woman who plans to run a marathon (or a half marathon!  The book has a training plan for a half, too!).  Dawn is a witty couch potato writer who one day decided to get her ass off the couch and run a marathon.  Her story is laugh-out-loud funny and regardless of the “horror stories” she includes about long runs, sore knees, and her training partner Chipper Jen, she made me really excited about running!

A typical week in the training plan looks like this:
Monday: REST
Tuesday: short run (anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 or 6 miles, depending on the week)
Wednesday: short run (anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 or 6 miles, depending on the week)
Thursday: cross-training
Friday: REST
Saturday: long run
Sunday: recovery run

What I like about this training plan is that it has me running four days a week, it includes a wide variety of mileage (from 3 miles all the way up to 22 miles) without increasing it too much to cause injury, and it’s just long enough before I get burned out (20 weeks, but if you have a good running base, you could start 3 or even 5 weeks in).

*Photo courtesy of www.buzznet.com.