The plan

It's been an obscenely long time since my last post so felt compelled to provide an update - however brief. I am back into marathon training and have complete weekly mileage of fifty-six, forty-three and fifty in the last three weeks. I am following an amended Pfitzinger & Douglas up to seventy miles schedule. There will be a significantly increased emphasis on running many more marathon paced runs. This will involve more sessions with marathon or faster pace miles each week, while being careful that the recovery runs are truly that. Each week will involve either three or four marathon pace miles in the mid week 'medium long run' or between eight and twelve miles at marathon pace within the weekend 'long slow run'. In addition to this race specific workout I will include a tempo and a 5k pace interval workout. Short recovery runs will intersperse these 'quality sessions'. I will take a flexible approach to this number of quality sessions per week and convert one of them into a recovery session if I feel my body warrants it. So, that's the plan for my autumn marathon. I have not signed up to any yet but Koln is a likely candidate. In the meantime I have entered the Irish Multi-marathon on 4 July. I hope it will not be as baking hot as it was last year.