Four Bridges Half Marathon Training: Week Zero

When I signed up for the Four Bridges Half Marathon in late July, I had a training plan in mind for a slow ramp up to the 13.1 mile distance that involved completing a 9 mile run in July (which I did), a 10 mile run in August, 11 in September, and then a 12 in early October. Unfortunately, a cold derailed my efforts in back half of August, and I didn't train for two weeks. Left with just 8 weeks to train, I've decided to do a modified version of the 7 week beginning runner plan from the Four Bridges website.

Having not ran for 2 weeks and knowing that next week the plan would be to run 17 miles over 5 days, I decided to unofficially target 15 miles in 5 days this week. I hoped to run 17 so that I'd be a week ahead of schedule with my long run being near 5 miles as I'm interested in doing a 10K (6.2 miles) next weekend. I was a bit concerned with this plan as I haven't ran more than 3 days in a week this year and my max mileage in a week was probably around 15 miles.

Although running on back-to-back days was tough with quite a bit of soreness, my results far exceeded my expectations: I ran a total of 19.1 miles during the week roughly equaling the suggested amount for week 2. Here's my day-by-day breakdown:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
Sep 03	Sep 04	Sep 05	Sep 06	Sep 07	Sep 08	Sep 09
2.75	3.40		3.85	3.65	5.40

Total Mileage: 19.10

All things considered, I didn't feel as sore as I expected Sunday morning. Don't get me wrong, I certainly did feel sore just not enough to not take the dogs for a walk. I felt good enough that I think I will be signing up for the Making the Grade Run next weekend. I've heard that the course is hilly and with the extra days of running, I'm a bit concerned about setting a new "personal worst". However it will be good to get a feeling for how I respond to adrenaline from "race excitement" in conjunction with sore muscles.

This upcoming week will be the first one (of many) where other sporting activities interfere with my desired running schedule. I have Site Games Billiards on Tuesday and potentially on Wednesday and Thursday if my team does well. I'm hoping to be able to still work in at a least a short run on those days if needed.

The Four Bridges plan for the week is:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
3.5	2.5		3.5	2.5	5.0

Plan Mileage: 17.0

I will likely replace the 5.0 mile run on Saturday with the previously mentioned Making the Grade Run. I'm also hoping to do an additional half mile each mile to finish the week with just over 20 miles.