Running the Parau Track and Putting a Training Plan Together

Well, I managed to get a sensible distance in this week over the course of five runs - four on the road and one on the trails - despite work being pretty busy in the lead up to the holidays. The trick of it for me is managing to get the distance in despite work, and to do that I try and run during my commute as much as possible.

Given my work commitments, it can be quite hard for me to make it out as often as I would like but I still feel the need to have a plan to allow me to at least monitor my progress. I tend to make my own plans up based on a few rules I've picked up from my tragic addiction to running books:

• Run 80% easy and about 20% quality
• Have at least one long run each week, preferably two if you're doing an ultra
• Add strides to your easy runs to keep your leg turnover
• Make up your quality runs with a mixture of tempo runs, fartlek, hills, intervals etc..
• Increase your top end by 10% per week
• Cut back every fourth or fifth week
• Start tapering 3 weeks out for an ultra or a marathon, 2 weeks out for a half, or 1 week for a 10k or less
• Don't forget to include a decent amount of rest or recovery days

There. That cost me several hundred bucks in running books and you get it here for nothing. Public service blogging at its finest. I'll be tracking my training plan as I go, which you can read on a static page here.

This week's trail run was the Parau track from the Parau carpark to the Huia Dam and back. Probably only 13k in total, it's still a pretty tough run with lots of hills and muddy, rooty, rutty bits. I did in a bit over two hours, which I don't feel too unhappy about.