Injury Update and future plans - Melbourne Marathon Oct 9 2011

I have been diligently doing what I am supposed to do - Running no more than three times a week, no more than 5 km at a time. I have had 2 weeks off completely, taking anti inflams at prescribed doses. And have been in my '3 days a week no more than 5km at a time' stage for three weeks.

I have 3 to 5 weeks to go before I re-assess and decide if I am able to resume mileage build up for my next attack on the marathon distance.

The runs I have been doing have been SO easy but I have been doing a few speed sessions. Actually what I am doing is going jogging with our dog MAX, and Christine my partner. She is training for her first Marathon at Gold Coast. She has done 3 HM's already, all reasonably slow, but finishing in better shape every time. All over about three years. Anyway when she does her speed sessions I take the dog, and take off fast with him to catch her up. So I have been doing a bit of speed.

I have also been doing a couple of bike rides a week, going almost flat ou the whole way, 40 to 50 minutes. It seems to be building up a lot of strength because I feel really _fast_ over a short distance. Also I feel like I am retaining a reasonable level of fitness for running. The runs I have been doing feel really good, and easy.

My legs and feet are the best they have been since May last year. I no longer feel the need to ice now and background aches and pains are almost gone. I won't be tempted to return too soon, I will wait until after the 3 weeks are up.

And here I come to what I plan to do once I am officially fit to train properly again. I am really attracted by the three days a week running idea. So I have looked up the FIRST program on the web. It describes a training program with three central workouts - Speed, Tempo and Long, with subtle variations of these over a 16 week program only three days a week. It also includes at least 2 cross training days a week, and I will likely ride bike.

I am adapting the FIRST program to fit the 16 weeks in to the lead up to the October 9 2011 Melbourne Marathon. The program starts in a pretty intense state right from the beginning, so I need to build up to that.

The FIRST program is available here:

The Less-Is-More Marathon Plan

I am going to alter it somewhat - I am used to doing runs based on TIME not distance. So I will work out the times I need to run, at the pace I am supposed to run it at to achieve the equivalent distance.