A question about marathon training

cggale - 2010-08-27 12:39 PM

Hope this is ok to post here.  I'm training for my first marathon that is in November.  My marathon training plan has my long run in between rest days.  So my long run is on a Wednesday, I rest on Thursday, and I have a short run on Friday.  Since Friday is a short run, I tend to run pretty hard. 

My question is, is this short run intended as a recovery run or a run that I can do whatever I want?  I mean I don't want to injure myself.  Seems weird though to have a recovery run two days later...but maybe not?  I run a tempo run once a week.  However those runs are increasing in distance as my marathon training increases, so a tempo run could be difficult.

Hope this makes sense.  I'm just a little confused as my training plan doesn't specifically say run hard, run slow, ect.  It just gives the miles to run.  I'm not new to running, but I am new to marathon training.  I'm used to 5k, 10k, and have done 2 half marys.  A marathon is whole different area. 

Thanks for any words of wisdom.  I want to train smart and not injure myself.  But I have competitve streak in me and want to do well too. 

cggale - 2010-08-27 2:07 PM

Thanks for the quick reply guys.  My training plan came from rungearrun.com.   It does have a pacing guideline at the bottom of the plan.  Based on a 5k race pace it magically calculates pacing guidelines to reach a goal marathon time.   For example, I stated my 5k race pace as 7:40min/mile and it has my goal marathon time as being 8:53 min/mile.  That seems a little fast for my first marathon...gulp.   I should also add, that it does have training pace times but it seems slow.  For example, it states:  1-4 mi run training pace at 9:53, 5-9 mi training pace at 10:23, 10-14 mi training pace at 10:42 ect...   I thought it was meant for the long runs.  Perhaps it's meant for all my training runs.  Hmmmm.

I don't run hard on every run.  On Saturdays and Sundays, I take the runs kind of easy as I'm usually working out on the bike.

FWIW, I don't have a garmin and I really just run on how I feel.  So some runs are faster than others.  I really just want to do this right without injury.