May 2010

* Race pace is the pace you would like to run for the total distance of the relay leg you will run.

Wednesday notes

Week 1 Jog 15 mins to park, field or track. Run fast for 90seconds, jog for 1minute and repeat this 5times, then jog home

Week 2 Jog 15mins to place where you can run faster back and forth on nice even surface around local GAA field or even the track. Run faster than race pace on these efforts. 3mins fast, 2mins easy, 1min fast, 1 easy, 3mins fast, 2mins easy, then jog home.

Week 3 Same warm up as before, aslo you could include some stretches and 4 fastish 100m strides. 5 times 90seconds fast with 90seconds rest, then jog home very easy.

Week 4 Continue with 15min warm up jog, stretching and a few strides, then 3mins fast, 2mins jog, 2mins fast 2mins jog, 1minsfast 1mins jog. Then jog home easily.

Week 5 Same warm up as before, aslo you could include some stretches and 4 fastish 100m strides. 5 times 1 mins fast with 2 mins rest, then jog home very easy.

Fast runnning is running at a pace faster than you normally run on your everyday runs. Fast can be faster than race pace over a shorter distance and this helps you to become more efficient at running your race pace.

“Jogging is a medically approved physical fitness program for all ages,helps to reduce the waistline.”

As this is the final month or so before the marathon you will be reaching your peak fitness and mileage levels and gradually reducing the mileage in the final couple of weeks, to allow your legs to recover from the heavy training and be light and fresh in preparation for race day. At this point you may want to have more rest days and in the final two weeks you may want to run even less than I am suggesting. You must remember that there is every possibility you will feel lethargic and more tired than when you were training hard . This is a norml occurrence as your body adapts to the lower work load and stores more Glycogen in preparation for the race. As you reduce yor training loads and continue to eat similar levels of food you will store more fuel naturally without having to eat more as you are burning less energy.

In the final weeks it is also a good idea to practice different meals the night before long runs and sessions to work out what type of food suits you best in preparation for the race. Also this is a good time to work out what food and drinks you will have the morning of the race.

On the day before the race you can either have a complete rest day or maybe a light jog for no more than 30minutes and be sure to re-fuel immediately after this run.

Lay all your gear, shoes and numbers out the night before so that you are not looking for things on race morning, remember you have trained hard and now it is time to go and enjoy the race and run your best . Don’t forget to smile when you cross the finish line you can be sure the cameras will be taking pictures here.