I finally signed up for the Oxford Half Marathon again this year. Very excited. Since I habitually live on another continent, running that race has certain… overhead. Like going to visit my family, drinking Real Ale, steering a hired canal boat along the Oxford Canal with friends. etc, etc.
I did it, and documented it, last year.
I have a training plan
I'm not in great shape right now. And my friends who are running it are quite quick. I need to get faster. I need to train. And to lose some weight, since I'm pretty heavy right now.
I made a plan! I have made it using intervals.icu, and taking into account vacations that are coming up. It may be a bit ambitious! But it can be adjusted on the fly and I'll still know where I stand.
Look! Here is a graphic that the web site generated:
The vertical light grey line is today. The top graph is about the state of my fitness: the blue line is my fitness and the purple line is my fatigue. (I don't know what the units are, but in my experience they are both arbitrary and useful.) The bottom graph is about whether I'm doing too much or too little. When trying to get fit, you want to be in the green zone, but for races you want to be in the blue "fresh" zone. As you get fitter, you need to do progressively more work in order to be in the green zone.
Workouts are either Power Zone rides on my Peloton spin bike, or runs. I'm choosing to use the peloton because a) I'm very familiar with it and b) it's a low-injury risk way to rapidly improve cardio fitness. In the first block the plan is one long run, one short run, and two peloton rides per week. As I get closer to the race I'll transition to 3 runs and 1 ride.
I've given myself a goal that I care about, and am orienting my fitness plans around it. Hopefully I can stick to it.
TODOs:
- Look into fancy fast running shoes
- Find some more shorts which aren't going to chafe too much
- Put an outdoor ride or two into the plan