Saturday, June 7, 2008

Midrange Goals -> 2008 Replan

I've been doing some midrange goal setting, and have decided that I am going to focus on my marathon time for the next 3 years. My recent race was a huge improvement but I don't feel I'm at any sort of limit. It was just over 7 minutes/mile. I have a crazy goal that I can get down to under a 6 minute mile pace in 3 years. That's a 2:37 marathon. Given the fact that I haven't run a 5k at that pace it is a big, big stretch.

But that's all part of the fun, so the goal is to run a 2:37 marathon sometime in 2011. As such, I'm dumping any other goals like running fast half marathons, 10ks, miles etc and will be doing those only as secondary/supporting events.

I did some research, and polled some people who have made this type of progression at my advanced age (I'll be 45 for most of 2011) and it doesn't seem to be totally impossible. Several years of consistent, big mileage (100+ miles per week) seems to be pretty standard, as does a lot of 20+ mile runs. I also plan to race more marathons, so I can get a better idea of what happens when I approach (and probably exceed) the limits of what my body is able to do

I havent thought more than 1 year out but have a good idea of the next 12 months.....

June will be a recovery month, with no week over 75 miles. Total mileage around 280. Get some speedwork into the schedule and run a couple shorter races (5k, 10k).

July, August and September are all big months at 350+ with 20+ milers most weekends. Trying to focus on consistent mileage vs too many peaks & troughs. So it'll be 80-90 most weeks, with a cutback (high 50s) every 3-4 weeks. Probably run a couple 10k races to assess fitness.

October has a couple races: first will be San Jose half marathon. This will be an all out effort, and will be used to help set my goal time for my next full effort marathon (December). I'd be looking for something solidly under 1:25, ideally closer to 1:23. The other race will be a full marthon (Silicon Valley 10/26). This will just be a training run: first half at an easy pace, and second half at the goal pace for the next marathon.

November is another solid month at 350 miles, with a slight taper for a race on December 7th. I plan to run the California International Marathon as a full effort race. Hoping to get under 3 hours, maybe as low as 2:55 if training has gone well. I'll set the goal based on my result at the San Jose half marathon in early October.

Then it'll be a solid, but not crazy December, followed by January thru March building up mileage with a focus to run Boston on April 20th 2009. Boston isn't the fastest course in the world so I'll be hoping to just run it faster than I ran CIM.

Then, 12 months from now, I'll see where I am and plan out the next year.

This should be fun, and since consistent, solid training is key, I will need to remain somewhat flexible and avoid messing up my body. I don't really know if I'm capable of running a marathon at under 6 minutes per mile, but I do know that there is only one way to find out.

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