It’s been awhile since I’ve written entries here in my personal diaries. For those of you that are new to reading Running Wild, when I’m training for a race, I usually journal every Sunday to keep tabs on my own personal progress. It seems that people like to hear about the training experiences of other runners, perhaps as a way of validating some of their own feelings and experiences. The last series of journals I wrote were in this past summer, when my friend’s Karl and Andy and me were preparing for the White River 50 miler. After that, I had other things on my plate and so I haven’t been preparing for races since.

Now, it’s time to start a new series. So welcome to Sunday and Chapter 1. I’m training for the Boston Marathon next April and I’m starting now! (Actually, I started this past week, but I’m starting to write about now.) If it seems like a long time until Boston, well, it is. It’s almost six months from now. But I have plans to do some other races within this training cycle to get ready along the way. So I consider this all a part of my preparation for Boston.

As a bit of background, after the 50 miler in July I took it easy for a while and then ran a few small races. But in the last two months: I have an eight-week old baby, so you can guess how much I’ve been running! I managed three runs in the last seven weeks prior to this week. This week I was finally able to put together four runs, which is a good start.

In this first phase of my training, I’ll spend three weeks just getting to know the feel of the road and track again. I always find that it’s a good idea to take a couple of weeks and have no goals at all other than to run. I don’t wear a watch on these runs. I just go out and feel it. It’s a nice way to ease back into it.

The way that I envision this training season is something like this:
Phase I – Return to running (3 weeks)
Phase II – Speed Focus (6 weeks) – I plan to spend this time working exclusively on the 1,500M to really build my raw speed.
Phase III – Medium Distance Speed (6 weeks) – I’ll spend this time working on my half-marathon speed, which will be faster than marathon pace.
Phase IV – Long Endurance (6 weeks) – I’ll finish out my training with about six weeks of progressively longer and faster runs.
Phase V – Taper (3 weeks)

That should put me write at about late April, just in time for Boston.

I haven’t yet developed my time goals for Boston, but I’ll do that shortly at the beginning of Phase II. I hope to conclude both Phase II and III with races – a 1,500M at the end of Phase II and a half-marathon at the end of Phase III.

Weekly Summary:
This first week, I was just happy to get a couple of good runs in and one session on the track. Hey, it’s a start!

Weekly Log:
Run #1 – ~5 miles
Run #2 – ~ 6 miles
Run #3 – ~ 4 miles with 2 miles up-tempo
Run #4 – 3 miles @ track with a series of build-up 100s and 200s.
Rest days: 3
Total Miles: not that many

So, I hope that you’ll have fun and learn something as I move along toward Boston next Spring.

Want to join me in Boston? Join my virtual training team for the Boston Marathon 2008. For more information click here. Training teams for other 2008 will be announced shortly. Click here to read about my other programs.

Coach Joe English, Portland, Oregon, USA