Fitfam6 Fall Training Starts Soon!
/With the days ever so slowly getting shorter and our annual Disneyland trip for the RunDisney Half Marathon weekend quickly approaching, fall training is on the mind. In the past, Dave and I plot out what we think we can manage between work, children, other family obligations, the children's busy academic life and so much more. Dave, always the more "dedicated" runner has followed structured plans such as Hanson's marathon plan. I on the other hand try my best to fit in what I can when I can. I try to commit to 4-6 days of running per week and depending on how much time I have in the evenings, I decide distance and type of training run I can implement. Not the best method but again, we do what we can.
This year we are trying a whole new approach for many reasons:
1. Nearly the whole family now has bigger goals of runner farther and better. Dave and I are planning for marathon distances in 2016. I have WDW Marathon and the Inaugural Pony Express Marathon with David next year. The older boys want to train and run more 10k races and Elias who has run/walk 5ks in the past wants to run longer and walk shorter.
2. We are busy, busy, busy. Between having a 5 year old with afternoon kindergarten, Jacob starting band, Gabriel being in Middle School and all the things that come with that, Asher and his therapy and full time employment, we need structure. Training plans offer that structure.
3. In our efforts to continue to be an example and to teach our boys about goal setting and hard work, organizing training plans is another way to incorporate life skills into our everyday living.
This time around we are making the effort to follow Hal Higdon's 10k and Marathon programs. Below are the plans we have chosen:
Hal Higdon Marathon and 10k training plans and Kids 5k plan
There is a caveat, at least for me. In the Marathon plan, intervals, hill repeats, strides, etc are not noted. I am working those into my run days. Yes, I understand that if I adjust the plan then I am not truly following the plan. My reasoning is I am limited on time and need to fit in what I can. I am not training to be fast, simply training to finish better than past times with no set number in mind. Therefore, I want to implement into my training, opportunities to be a stronger runner which means slight modifications during some runs.
As for David, I'm not really sure of his end goal. I think he's mostly training because I need company and forcing him to run with me. He has always been a better runner than me, so it's nice to have him along for this ride so I can push myself a little and we can look forward to a semi-date. Sad, but true. We use races as dates. It's the life of having multiple children.
What races are you training for? Which training plans have you utilized?
