By Hayden Shearman // We’re eight months out from the Lion Foundation Rotorua Marathon and, yes, it’s time to get that caboose off the couch! But nothing spectacular needs to happen once you’re off the couch, it’s the getting off that counts. Here’s why …
The following applies if you’re running the marathon (if you’re doing the half marathon you have a couple of months up your sleeve). The most important thing for you marathoners is to allow your body to adapt to getting out running 3 or more times per week. Before you start hitting bigger mileage or faster running, your body needs to adjust to the regular pounding of the pavement, develop calluses to avoid blisters and to settle in to the regular habit of getting out the door with the trainers on.
So it’s the habit of being a runner we are trying to create at this stage. Don’t worry about distance or speed, just cruise and enjoy the feeling of running in the spring time!
And if you’re worried about how much mileage you should be doing here are my two golden rules:
- Have one long run per week that increases in duration each week by 10% or 1km (which ever is more);
- Increase overall weekly mileage by a maximum of 10% or 5km (which ever is more) each week.
So let’s say your longest run this week is 6k (and total mileage for the week 15k) your next three weeks might look like this:
- 7k long run (18k for the week)
- 8k long run (22k for the week)
- 6k long run to freshen up the legs (15k for the week).
We pull the mileage back for that last week in order to provide a further opportunity for your body and mind to adapt to the new training stress. Three weeks of increasing training stresses and then one week of lessened training stress to recover. This week is also a great week to introduce some faster running, but more on that in a future blog, for now, just get that body moving anyway you can!
This is a series of blogs all about getting you trained up and raring to go for the 2017 Lion Foundation Rotorua Marathon (or half or quarter).
Grab a fully personalised and tailored training plan to take you to your next race.
