Why I don't use a Training Plan

A google search for "marathon training plan" shows that there are thousands of websites out there offering a plan of exactly what training you should be doing everyday of the plan, but on each of the websites there will a multitude of options.....a 10 week plan, a 12 week plan, a 15 week plan, a 20 week plan, and plans for beginner, intermediate and advanced runners.

When I ran my first half marathon I followed a 12-week plan almost religiously, if the plan said I should be running up hills I was running up hills, if it said I should run for two hours I was running for two hours. The plan served me well, I had the objective of finishing in 1:45 and ended up running a chipped time of 1:37.

I was sold on the idea that I needed a plan for my running, but the problem I had was that while there were endless plans for building you up for a particular race distance, there was nothing out there telling me what I should be doing to maintain my form once the race had been done. I wanted to do another half-marathon six weeks after my first, there are six-week training plans out there but they assume you are starting from a low base and need to build up.

As soon as I had a place in the London Marathon 2009 I set about finding the plan to get me there. After trawling the internet I found a sixteen week plan that seemed perfect, so as I had done with my first half marathon, I set about following the plan religiously to get me around my first full marathon. However, this was when my faith in the plan approach deserted me.

The problem I faced was that for whatever plan you are following, there are never any guidelines for when, for whatever reason, you cannot stick exactly to the plan. When I did my first half marathon I had no other races to think about, my focus was just on one race so I could follow the plan completely but when preparing for the marathon I had other objectives, half-marathons I wanted to take part in, games of football to play in, but no space in the training plan for them. I tried to just drop the half-marathons straight into my training plan to replace the weekly long-run, but perhaps unsurprisingly this led to injury, which leads to another problem with following a training plan, when you do recover from injury there is never any guidelines on how quickly you should get back on to your training programme, should you go back to the stage you were before you were injured, go back further and build up again or just go straight back on to the plan doing the high mileage weeks?

I tried to get back on to my training plan as soon as possible, mainly due to the fear that if I didn't I wouldn't be able to do the long runs you need to build yourself up to a marathon, and again I got injured. I missed out on the marathon and I put that mainly down to my obsession with the plan. When I look back at what I was doing it amazes me just how stupid I was, I missed a week of training with a groin injury, but within five days of returning to training I was doing a 17 mile training run, with a 10 mile run the following day.

I learnt the hard way that a strict training plan wasn't for me, since I recovered from the injury that ruled me out of the marathon I have continued to train and I use many of principals that are encompassed in the many training plans, but without the strict planning involved, I don't know that in ten weeks time I will be doing a fifteen mile run. Here are the principals I try to follow:

1. Listen to your body, if you feel unwell or the slightest hint of an injury don't train, or if you really feel that you have to train try a different sport that is unlikely to aggravate the injury, for me this is normally swimming or cycling.
2. Do one long run a week, you are going to run a marathon, you need to know what its like to spend hours out on the road.
3. Gradually build up your mileage, adding alot of miles quickly is only going to lead to injury, and if you do get injured start again from a low base of mileage otherwise you are risking a rapid recurrence of your injury.
4. Keep your training sessions varied, hill running, sprints, races, other sports, anything to keep things interesting while at the same time improving your fitness.
5. Be prepared for the worst, training for a marathon will put a huge strain on your body you should be prepared for it to breakdown, but find a good physio so when you do have problems you can make a swift recovery.
6. Be flexible, point number one is key, be ready to adapt your sessions to how you are feeling, if you are feeling lethargic a 15 mile long run is not likely to make things better, but a short sharp session of sprints might.
7. And last but not least, enjoy it! Take pleasures in all the landmarks you reach on the way to your goal, a PB on your training lap, your first time running for an hour without a break, taking over the runner in the park that used to make you feel you were as fast as a snail, you should take pride in all these achievements so you can get a real joy from running.

As my blog continues hopefully you'll be able to see me applying these principals, and with a bit of luck they might lead me to success in Madrid next April.