Marathon Training Week 4 Notes
Week 4 has come and gone. If you remember week 4 was actually my first week of marathon training. I am using Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 1 18 week program and starting at week 4. Everything went well with some success and some disappointments. Here is what week 4 was supposed to looked like.
The positives from this week is my cardo is a little better than I thought it was. I seems to be able to run as far as my legs will take me. I am not having any issues breathing or being able to run at a 9 minute mile pace for the distance I am currently training for. But the key here is getting my legs in running shape.
This brings us to the disappointments this week. I started off the week with the first 3 runs of 3 miles, 6 miles, 3 miles. I did my 6 mile too fast. I ran it at more of a pace run instead of a slow and steady run. By the end of my third run of the week my calfs were strained. It is not the meaty part of my calfs but the lower part. This is common for me when starting to run. It will just take some time to build them up and get conditioned to the consecutive run days. For my forth run of the week, 6 miles at pace, my legs just did not have it. I ran the full 6 miles but I was a good 4-5 minutes slower than my normal sub 60 minute runs at 6 miles. So it was not a pace run. The final let down this week was not running my Sunday long run. I was suppose to do 11 miles. I decided to do a 20 mile bike ride so my calfs could heal up a little. I feel guilty about not doing the long run but I think listening to my body is the right thing to do. That pretty much sums up week 4 so it is time to move on and look at week 5.
I am going to change up this weeks routine a little. I plan to do a long run today and make up for no Sunday run. Then maybe rest a day and continue with the normal week’s routing. I am going to try to get in a long run on Friday again. Next week I am on vacation and driving out to Colorado. That means this coming weekend I won’t get in a long run. I am going to be hiking in the mountains so my legs will get getting some kind of workout. They just won’t be pounding the pavement. I still hope to get in a few runs out in Colorado just to keep the legs moving in the right direction.
I am curious to hear from others who are following marathon training plan. Did you change the plan very much? Post a comment.
