The Game Plan

I decided to focus on the half marathon distance after my dismal performance at the Scotiabank Marathon last year. I figured a solid year of racing the half marathon distance would get me mentally and physically ready to tackle the full again in 2012. Which is exactly what I'm planning on doing. I also needed to gain some strength in my legs. I usually start to feel fatigue and soreness in my legs about an hour and 15 minutes into a run. My lungs can go forever but my legs seem to tire out well before my lungs give out. I figured some time in the gym would be just what I needed to rectify the situation. Normally I would work out 2 times a week and run 4 times a week. This time around, I decided to scale back on the running to 3 days a week and add a 3rd weight workout. I would have no room for junk mileage. I'd be doing one long run and 2 shorter runs that would involve either intervals, tempo or hill work. The long runs would alternate between easy efforts and a combination of easy and race pace efforts. This plan also involves over distance training, which means I'd run more than the half marathon distance during my long runs. I did 2 over distance runs, one of 22km and the other was 24.5km (should have been 25km). Each of those over distance runs had a race pace segment in them. Anywhere between 30 - 50 minutes @ 10km pace. Between this and my additional weight training I've definitely noticed an increase in leg strength. In two weeks, I'll find out if this little plan worked.