Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Altering Your Training Plans

This weeks training plan  
GASP! NO!!!! I can't alter my training plan!!!

Yes...you can!

Let's face it life gets in the way, trust me, it's OKAY to change your training plans. From doing your fartleks on Tuesday to Monday, your tempo from Thursday to Friday and yes even...GASP...cancel your long run! Now, don't get in the habit of axing your runs all the time but sometimes, you have to, there's no way around it. Guess what? The rest could even do you good!

Welcome to my next 3 weeks of training. First there is training, that's #1 in my world but I'm running anywhere from 5 to even 6 days a week and that is on top of a full time job, a house to take care of and a part time job teaching fitness classes (5 classes in 4 days to be exact). Sometimes, I gotta adjust and more times than not.

Training is going excellent, each run I'm so happy at how well my body is responding. I'm challenging myself but not killing myself either. However, this week is NUTS. First I was in St. Louis for a Blues game (they won woo hoo) so I had to change my Monday rest day to my Tuesday Fartlek run, then on Saturday I'm going to Chicago to partake in the Les Mills Quarterly (I'm a LM instructor) so I'll be doing all of the LM classes from like 8AM-5pm, then coming home Sunday. That means I have NO weekend to hit my 12 miler! I could do it Friday but then I'd have to find a sub for my RPM class but I'm already doing that NEXT WEEKEND because I'm going back to St. Louis for another hockey game and that's a 14 miler.

So...I cancelled it...my long run...yes...I'm axing this weeks LR. I am adding a 5 mile progression run to the mix today and following the program the remainder of the week, so I'll run each day this week but skip the long run. And honestly each week I usually have to cut a mile or more from my training schedule because I just don't have the time or energy sometimes to complete them all.

Will this hurt me? Absolutely not. Will it benefit me? Absolutely!

Let's face it, I'm not going for gold, I'm just going for MY personal best. Training shouldn't be difficult and shouldn't stress you out, now if your cancelling LR after LR, then we need to talk but once or twice, wont hurt and like I said the extra rest could even do you some good.

Keep it simple, have fun and just get out there and run.