Uncle Pfitzy

Hi!

I promised at some point to discuss my training plan for this marathon. I am following Pete Pfitzinger's "55 miles per week or less, 24-week schedule". Actually, I missed the first week, so I'm technically doing a 23 week plan. The title "Uncle Pfitzy" comes from a running podcast that I listen to called 4 Feet Running. Nik abandoned "Uncle Higgy" (Hal Higdon) in favor of "Uncle Pfitzy" and got a huge PR. Unfortunately, Nik and Dan have decided to move on to different projects and therefore there podcast is ended. But you can still check out their blog here:

4 Feet Running

I have had Pfitzinger's book Advanced Marathoning for quite some time, but I have never completely and faithfully followed the plan. I attempted it when I trained for Austin and was running really, really fast for awhile. I ran a 17 miler at BQ pace! Unfortunately, I wasn't taking the prescribed rest and recovery days, which caused me to basically crash and burn about halfway through the program. I think it's a very solid training plan, so I've come back to it. I am taking the rest days this time.

The plan is broken into 4 "mesocycles". Mesocycle 1 is "Endurance". Mesocycle 2 is "Lactate Threshold + Endurance". Mesocycle 3 is "Race Preparation" and Mesocycle 4 is "Taper". There are some tough workouts in this program. I expect that things will get difficult later on when the program calls for 13 milers mid-week. That's a pretty long run for me to do on a work night. But, in the end, I think it is worth it to get a PR.

Hm...I thought that I had more to discuss related to the training plan specifically. But, I guess this at least gives a bit of background information to my weekly summaries.

Happy Running!

Jen