Long Run Schedule

When I first put my program together, I was considering two options for the last pre-race push to longer distance. I was leaning towards sticking with Smartcoach, but also looking at Galloway’s training plans.

Smartcoach sticks to the 4 week blocks, with the longest long run of each right before the recovery week, but all 3 long runs within the block are close to the same length. So, my long runs would be 9, 9, and 10 miles over the next 3 weeks, followed by an easy week. Then they would be 10, 11, and 11 miles, followed by an easy week before the race.

Galloway has a different approach, alternating each week between the long run and a short run during the 8 wks prior to race day. The Galloway schedule goes (in miles) 9.5, 4, 11, 4, 12.5, 4, 14, 5, race. I like that this would get me to 3 runs over 10 miles, plus the alternating long weeks should decrease the chance of injury.

I'm kicking around thoughts of combining these two programs, with the alternating long runs from Galloway, and the 4^th week being all easy runs from SC. If I use the Galloway approach, I’ll drop the distance of the long runs a bit, since I’m planning on my longest being in the 18-20 km range.

I was playing around last night with my handy excel schedule maker, and here’s what my schedule looks like if I use the alternating weeks (click to expand).