Creating a running schedule (2024)
Not too much, not too little
Most days I’m thinking about progress.
Progress in my professional life, personal relationships, and fitness level. And thinking about progress all the time necessitates a framework for supporting the desire to make things better.
So it’s time to create a training plan!
My training goals
This is my second bout of running practice (in my life), after I learned how truly annoying injuries are. In winter 2023 I triumphantly finished the C25K program, and proceeded to run 2-week blocks that ended in shin splints on 3 separate occasions. The annoyance of the situation made me take a break until the following October.
So priority #1: push myself, but stay well clear of the injury threshold.
I signed up for my first race, the 2024 BAC Shamrock Shuffle here in Chicago, IL. It’s an 8K race downtown with a lot of fanfare. I expect it to be a lot of fun, and I sure as hell want to finish it without question. For me, that means keeping my intensity the same and increasing my weekly mileage. I come from a weight training background, and getting my heart beating fast for more than a few seconds is enough to kill all my motivation.
Priority #2: increase my weekly mileage as much as possible.
Borrowing from other runners
I’ve never created a training plan before, so I’ll be borrowing ideas from a few others online to get moving faster.
Göran Winblad, a YouTube creator and runner from Norway, shared a video documenting his spreadsheet and processes to make his training plan. (See: How to plan your running schedule).
His approach is way too complicated for my current needs so I simplified things down into an annual tab, and a monthly tab.
There’s the 10% weekly mileage increase heuristic that runners love or hate. While the emphasis on safety and injury prevention is the whole reason to use this guideline, my current weekly mileage is too low for me right now. I’d love to get above 20MPW consistently ASAP.
Instead, I’m going with the philosophy of: attempt an arbitrary increase (never more than 50% from the previous week), run it for ~3 weeks, and keep track of the signals my body’s sending me. (See: Strength Running’s brief blog post about rational decision making)
Hal Higdon’s plans are widely talked about on /r/running. I took a look at his intermediate plan, and almost trashed the tab when I saw the mention of speed work. What I like about his plan is the oscillating weekly flow where the mileage peaks and drops back, and peaks and drops back. Since I’m only including a long run every other week, this is how my weeks shape up already. (See: Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Plan for 8K races)
Putting it all together into a schedule
So what do the next 3 weeks hold in store?
Weekly miles
15 miles, 12.75 miles, and 16.1 miles.
Schedule A, with long run
x2 easy runs on Monday (I began running twice on Mondays before the end of the year, so that’s already built-in)
x1 easy run on Wednesday, Thursday
x1 long run on Saturday (60 min+)
x1 recovery run on Sunday (20min)
Schedule B, no long run
x2 easy runs on Monday
x1 easy run on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday
x1 recovery run on Sunday
Beyond this testing period, I have a few ideas of what to increase (days, duration), but I’m keeping an agnostic approach, a focus on the current training cycle, and keeping close tabs on how my body is feeling.
An exciting experiment to embark on!