Pacing Oneself To Last The Week

So you've set up your training program, marked down the key workouts that you shouldn't miss, penned down the rest days and inserted a couple of cross training (for me, cross-training means doing household chores) activities into your weekly plans. You try to eat right, get enough rest and stay motivated to last the 4 months of running. It will get pretty tedious and you will be tired. You may be able to shake off lethargy for a few sessions but 4 months is a long time to be sustaining a training program. So how do you ensure that you don't get burned out?

Having enough rest, eating right and staying hydrated are the usual obvious best practices. However, one often overlooked item is often the training program. The risk of penning or modifying a training program on your own is often committing the mistake of cramming too much into the week.

Over the past 2 weeks, I've observed that I got quite winded by Saturdays as I'd run too many hard sessions over the weekdays. A weakened disposition on weekends will risk one missing the key workout in marathon training called The Long Run. I've since reviewed my program again and made some minor tweaking to the plan. I've made conscious effort to run at an easier pace for the 8Ks and above while the more intense workouts are done over a shorter distance. I will also start the week off gradually, doing easier paced runs and building the momentum towards a hard mid week, then a day's rest to recover for a longer Saturday and Sunday runs. If fatigued, I will remove a day's weekday workout so that I can sleep an additional hour, or move a morning workout to the evening.