Training plans should be short and sweet

Training is one of those things that you hear people talk about when they’re preparing to hit a “serious” milestone. And, usually, it takes a long time. There’s a base period where you become acquainted with a routine. Then it’s followed by lots of practice to increase proficiency and, eventually, if you did everything right, you reach your goal.

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way because our schedules change, people get injured, the routine gets boring, we lose interest, and the list goes on. I like structure, but I don’t always follow my own advice, so I’m really really good at falling off of training plans. My main problem is that it always feels unreachable because the time period between point A to point B is just too long.

So here’s my take on it. You know that whole theory on how small achievements make people really happy? Or just the theory that if something doesn’t take as long to complete, you’re more likely to do it? I’m a big fan of that too.

Say hello to my color-coded month of April. I gotta run everyday, anyway – keep the streak alive!

Pink is easy, orange is speedwork (includes tempos), green is recovery, and yellow-ish are long runs. So 30% of my runs this month will be hard, almost 60% are easy, and the rest are my long runs. Two things I quickly discovered: I underestimated my pacing for tempos and recovery runs (ran both too slow). Just goes to show you, I tend to err on the side of not running too hard.

On top of everything, I’m documenting the parameters for detecting pauses in Garmin’s GPX and TCX files, plus 10 or so other mobile apps with GPX/TCX exports – all of which can soon be imported into Smashrun. Joy!

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