Having entered the Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon which takes place on the 8th March, in around 8-9 weeks time, and the fact that I’m back to work this week – I thought it would be an idea to set up a training plan to support my goals.

My main goal at the start of this year 2015, is to get healthy – and although I’ve rested a lot this last week to 10 days, this next week will hopefully see me getting back to some easy exercising before starting my training plan below week commencing the 12 January.

This next week will be a tester to see how well I am to train… GP tomorrow, but I’m already feeling better… I think. Hopefully some easy exercise might give me the boost I need too.

The workouts above will be the maximum I’ll do, and if I need rest, I’ll be flexible and take it – keeping the focus on my running.

The effective run (mondays) and the long run (weekends) will be the most important runs. Optional cardio (swim / cycle / run) can be done too, with 1-2 short strength sessions and 1-3 rest days.

The usual week will be:

Mon: AM Effective Run (25 or 35 mins) – on my own
Tue: AM Primal Strength – on my own PM Maybe an easy 3 miler wi Fit Girl
Wed: AM Swim (or easy cardio – cycle or run) – on my own (or rest!)
Thu; AM 5M Easy Run wi Gill – (or on my own)
Fri: Rest
Sat: Gym – Strength or easy cardio – wi Fit Girl
Sun: Long Run, training for Half Marathon / long run – wi Fit Girl.
(Sat & Sun interchangeable)

It’s Fit Girl’s first half marathon, so the goal will be to run with her and have her finish it (no time goals as she has a recurring injury which we don’t know how it will be until we train and do the event).

I’ll be training using my heart rate as I have been for a few years now – mainly easy running:  Here are my Heart Rate training zones, where I’ll aim to have my avg HR under 150 (Zone 3) for the majority of my workouts.

My main focus will be on easy running, with my heart rate below 150…. 2-3 easy runs a week and an interval or ‘effective’ run which will take the form of the table below for each run.

The top one is a 5 minute warm up, then fast for 30 secs, recover for 30 secs, repeated 15 times, then a 5 minute cool down. I’ll record how FAR I run, then aim to beat it the next time (recording it in my training plan).

The effective runs switch between 25 minute runs and 35 minute runs, and on each I’ll try to run further than the time (25 mins or 35 mins) before.

I only swam 13 times last year (in 2014), across just 6 months of the year, so I’m hoping to pick it up again in the New Year as a form of easy cross training.

The second swim session below is my usual 2000m session, and the first one is a new one, which I might struggle to remember. We’ll see if I make it to the pool or not. If not, I might do an easy spin session or a run instead.

Then there’s strength. I’m not going to do that heavy weights I was doing, as I’m finding I’m too sore and it doesn’t work well with running – so here are some alternative workouts:

I’ll do 1-2 strength sessions a week, keeping them short (30 – 40 mins) and maybe include easy cardio at the gym on the bike instead of some strength there.

And if I want to do some weights workouts, I’ll do these – again – short and sharp:

That should do – along with my Eating Right plan… here’s to what’s hopefully going to be a good start to 2015.

I’ve got a few more goals, which I’ll publish soon, but here’s the plan for the next 8-12 weeks anyway.