2009 Plan (first half)

0 km this week. Had an x-ray on the ankle and the doctor confirmed that it wasn't a stressy. Nevertheless, after a week of inactivity, the pain has lessened during walking, but it's still a bit painful when I get ouf of the bed in the morning or when going down the stairs.

On the positive note, I think I should be able to start jogging in the next week or so.

Due to the temporary paralysis, I have some time to think about my plans for next year. I have penciled in Gold Coast Marathon (GCM) in July as my target race for the first half of 2009. The reasons are as follows:

a) My wife is expected to give birth in early April, hence running will be limited between mid-March and mid-April. This means that Seoul in March or Canberra marathon in April is not an option. Perth marathon usually falls on the same date as GCM, so it is still a possibility. However, Perth doesn't provide a big-race atmosphere like GCM, which is sometimes helpful for the morale, especially in the latter stages on the race.

b) Given the projected 'down time' between mid-March and mid-April due to the reasons above, GCM (or Perth) provides an advantage in terms of timing. Even after the down time, I still have a good 10 weeks to prepare for the race.

c) July also fits the family schedule perfectly. Our son will be three months old by then, so it's the right time to pick up the baby and mom and take them to Singapore.

Goal time wise, I'd like to target around 3:05 - which represents 10 secs/km pace improvement from my last marathon in November. A challenging, but not unattainable target.

My plan of attack is as follows:

1) Jan-Feb
I will focus on 5k-10k training for the first two months of the year, culminating in a 10k race in March. I plan to follow Brad Hudson 10k plan level #2 from the book "Run Faster". However, I won't treat these races are important races, given they are typically inaccurate in terms of distance anyway. I won't taper for these races, a PB will be a bonus but I won't kill myself if I don't do well.

16 Jan: SGRunners 3-person relay race (2 x 3.5km)
1 Feb: Macritchie 5k cross country
14 Feb: track meet
1 Mar: Newton Active 10k

2) Mar - April
I plan to loosely follow 20-week Brad Hudson marathon plan, mixing Plan #2 and #3. The key word is 'loosely' since I will have a down time for a month as mentioned above and I like to vary and mix workouts from other sources as well. I might not be able to run a lot during the baby delivery period, but since I will be in Melbourne, I hope I will be able to squeeze in a couple of 'big workouts' taking advantage of the winter climate.

3) May- July
After the down time, I will return to Singapore and re-join the marathon plan with 10-11 weeks to go. Based on the current schedule, I might do a couple of longer distance races between 10k to 20k as tune-up races for the marathon.

3 May: Macritchie 20k cross country
mid-Jun: PassionRun 10k or 15k race (no date yet)
5 Jul: Gold Coast Marathon

Note that this is the first time that I am planning my peak race about 6 months in advance. While I can solely do marathon training for 6 months, but my concern is that I might get burn out from the distance training. I hope that by concentrating on 5k-10k races for the first couple of month, followed by 2 months of light marathon training (including down time), and finally 10-11 weeks to do marathon-specific training, I won't overtrain but still sufficiently be prepared for the race.