My Summer 2020 Training Plan
Prologue
The world is in the midst of a pandemic and the United States is experiencing civil unrest reminiscent of the 1960s. But, I’m still preparing for the eventual return of road racing.
In early May, I started running regularly again but not specifically training for the postponed Boston Marathon. I had my doubts that the race would happen and sure enough, the race was changed to a virtual event.
I also had an entry for the Wanda World Age Group Marathon Championships at the London Marathon. I thought odds were greater that it would happen but hesitated to make it my goal because traveling internationally might involve a quarantine.
In the end, I decided until a major road race occurs it doesn’t make sense to put my beat-up body though the rigors of a marathon training cycle. Instead, I will focus on letting my body heal and improving my weaknesses.
Self-assessment
I’ve gotten slower over the past year.
Last August, I focused on ultra-marathon training while also training for the New York City Marathon. In late September/early October, my training started to suffer. I had a disappointing 2019 New York City Marathon and withdrew from my goal 50-miler in December because I doubted that I could complete the distance. Looking back, I over-emphasized long runs and didn’t give myself enough recovery. (I also suffered from untreated high blood pressure.)
In January, I joined the LHR Virtual Boston Marathon Training Group. Our training plan included a good variety of long runs, threshold runs, and hill work. After the Boston Marathon was post-poned, I took a few weeks easy, ran 26.2 miles in what I dubbed the “2020 Runners Run Marathon“, and focused on my personal life. (I sold my townhouse and moved into an apartment!)
In the past month, my mileage has been around 40 miles/week. My long runs have been in the 10-12 mile range and I’ve done two quality sessions consisting of short intervals on Tuesdays and mile repetitions on Thursdays. During these runs, I’ve noticed the mobility in my knees isn’t what it once was and it occurred to me that it might be due to my age.
The Plan
Choosing or Designing a Plan
With speed being my main concern, I turned to Daniels Running Formula. For years, I consulted the second editions but recently, I purchased the third.
Like most training plans, the schedules are goal-race specific. As a marathoner, I decided to follow a half marathon training plan because it counts as speed but has higher mileage than the 10K plan.
The early pages of the plan noted:
This applied to me!
My current thinking is to follow Phase II and then re-assess moving to Phase III in mid-July when the late fall/early winter racing calendar may be clearer. For example, when I didn’t get into the 2020 New York City Marathon, I thought about running the Richmond or Philadelphia marathon in November. If I wanted to train for either of those events, I should start in mid-July.
Setting a Start Date
My training cycle started last Sunday on May 31st.
Arranging workouts
In the Daniels’ plan, there are three quality workouts a week.
Long. These workouts are on Sundays. Rather than a prescribed distance, it is no more than a certain length of time or percentage of weekly mileage.
Speed. Tuesdays are for track! In Phase II, they consist of sets of short intervals – no more than 400m – with equivalent distance recovery jogs.
Strength. Threshold running occurs on Thursdays. The workouts range from sets of one or four miles with short rests.
The other four days are easy. On three of those days, Daniels suggests adding strides that are 10-15 seconds at around mile pace.
Cross-training. I would like to start a weight training program to work on the strength and flexibility in my knees. In Virginia (and I imagine in most places), gyms were considered non-essential businesses and have been closes since mid-March. However, my new building has a fitness center and I hope it will re-open soon.
Contemplating a race goal
My last marathon was over 6 months ago and it’s difficult to know what I could do almost a year later in November.
If I end up running a marathon in November, I would like to run a qualifying time for the 2021 New York City Marathon, which is currently 3:38 (8:20 pace), to give myself a chance of getting in that event if it’s cancelled and registration re-opens. But realistically, I would be happy to run something like sub-3:50 (8:47 pace), which is my Boston Marathon qualifying time.
Selecting tune-up races
Unlike other training cycles, there isn’t a goal race at the end of this one because COVID-19 led to so many event cancellations. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to compete.
Last training cycle, one of my goals was to appear in the Potomac River Running’s Regional Runner Rankings again. However, with so many races cancelled this spring and summer, the editor decided not to do rankings for those seasons.
The team at RunWashington created the RunWashington Distance Derby Strava Segment Challenge. I plan to run the Teddy Roosevelt Island, and Custis Climb – Key Bridge to Glebe segments a few times. Although Strava recently put the leaderboards behind a paywall, not seeing the leaders is not unlike the racing season where I could only run my best and see where I ranked at the end.
Other Considerations
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so much is uncertain. Even though I’ve sketched out this plan for the summer, I know a second spike in cases in my area could push the timeline for life returning to normal ahead to 2021. Road racing will return someday and working on my speed should make me a better runner when it does.
