The last week of 2016 was a bit of a scrabble for me, a scrabble to get my annual mileage rounded up to 1050 miles. It meant me running about 25 miles over 5 runs, and gave me the big for running again.

Here’s what I did last week (after not a lot of running in December):

Mon: Rest
Tue: 6.4 mile run
Wed: Squat strength 2×20
Thu: 4.35 mile run
Fri: 9.46 mile run
Sat: 5 mile run
Sun: Rest

Last week I mentioned my health and fitness goals for 2017, the main running & fitness ones were:

– 4. Run consistently, 3-5 times a week with a plan, improve vo2 max from 49 to 55.
– 5. Strength at least once a week, twice if possible.

And if I do that, and 1. eat / fuel well too, it’ll hopefully lead to the following:

2. Get to my racing weight, 135lbs / 13% bf then 126lbs / 11% bf.
3. Get my waist to height ratio to 45% (from 50% in Jan 2017).
6. Rest, recover, sleep well – get a good morning & evening routine.

I’ve found that vo2 max estimate on the Garmin is a good measure of fitness. Put simply, when it’s higher, I feel fitter. When I ran the Belfast marathon in 2015 my vo2 max was a whopping 55, with regular running, and good cardio fitness, I’d like to get back to that. 🙂

So… (a little bit motivated by my brother Ewen running maybe 5 times a week, and churning out a half marathon easily nearly every week)… I decided I’d get a good 4 month running plan together.

I went onto Garmin Connect and downloaded the 16 week intermediate heart rate half marathon training plan. It syncs to my Garmin calendar, and the workouts to your Garmin, and you can export it to you iOS calendar on your phone too.

Aiming to build to a half marathon over that period, I’ll do 10k time trials and a few 10k races, and I’ll do a base of around 4-5 runs a week.

The orange are the planned runs, and the week will look something like this:

Mon:    Strength in the gym
Tue:      Easy run HR under 140
Wed:     Steady or Effective run HR 150+ (intervals, fartlek, tempo etc).
Thu:      Easy run HR under 140
Fri:        Strength at home (or rest, or swap with Sat)
Sat:        Shorter Fartlek or hills run HR 150+
Sun:       Long run (HR under 150) or time trials / races, including 10ks

I’m entered the Loch Katrine 10k on the 19th march and will look for other events to do.

As already mentioned, I’m going to take care to fuel well,according to how I train, and if I need rest I’ll take it, probably on the Thursday or Friday. I’ll be flexible with it though the week but aim to get at least 3-4 runs in and 1-2 strength sessions.

Some reasons for me not getting my training done include:
1 – dark mornings – answer is to run at lunchtime, or just get up and do it!
2 – work taking over – notice when this happens and plan ahead to get good sleep and energy for runs.

January will be a transition phase, getting into running regularly again, getting my weekly plan working for me.

February will be a base phase, getting a good base of fitness after January.

March will be a build phase, building on my fitness and doing some races / time trials.

April will be a peak phase and I’ll hopefully get to either race a half marathon or do a good half marathon run.

Strength training twice a week will hopefully compliment my running, and I’m using this week to get into my running alone before I go back to strength and the gym.

I’m thinking for strength options of:
– Deadlift strength
– Squat strength
– Compound strength
– KB strength
– BW HIIT strength

I decided for all this training, I’d need a new Garmin, so I upgraded to the Garmin 735xt.

A mix between the Garmin 920 triathlon watch and the Garmin vivo active everyday activity watch and maybe even the 630 running watch. It has various profiles including strength and running, and dies all the usual things you’d expect from a running Watch – gps, heart rate, metronome, analytics. 😀 and it’s very light too!

It gives me everything I need and more, and so far on my first run I liked it. (I sold my 920 and Vivoactive to pay for it!).

I’ll stick to 10ks and half marathons this year, but the main thing in January is to get my running fitness back and hopefully running will become easier again.