My National Half Marathon Training Plan UNVEILED!!

Well, with a whimper of self-doubt as to its intelligence, here it is!..

(Click so you can actually see it, or go HERE)

It's definitely not completely finished yet, which I will launch into in a moment (as you can tell from my incomplete math in the right column), but it seems to be in good enough shape so that I can get going on my training without having potential fitness sacrificed by my indecision. Also, it's important to point out that reading a recent post from Mary Egger's blog (via LesserIsMore) allowed me settle in on this more conservative training plan much easier than I otherwise would have.


Four Days of Running
The plan, as I foreshadowed in previous posts, is very much derivative of Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half Marathon Training Plan (seen HERE). Since the race is on a Saturday, I bumped everything "left" by a day so that I would be used to doing my longest runs on Saturday mornings. The original plan also called for 5 days of running, with 1 of those days (throughout the entire program) being nothing but running 3 "junk" miles, in my opinion. I nixed the junk-mile day and cut it down to 4 days. Also, I added importance to "regular" days by turning them into tempo runs, since there were otherwise none.

Speed-work
I REALLY like doing the speed-work, and this plan had some, so that was a HUGE perk. It just feels good to speed up a bit and enjoy that fast foot-turnover. I altered it slightly from its original state by incorporating a few 800s and lengthening the amount of distance doing actual fast running. This is the most under-developed part of the plan, however, and I am thinking about increasing the distance spent running fast, ala the FIRST Program. What's holding me back is the prospect of too much hard-running leading to injury.

Cycling
Having cycling as a very active part of the cross-training was crucial, especially since I have my first bike-race coming up in mid-March. While you only see two days of cycling per-week on the calendar as of now, I plan on transitioning Sunday (labeled "rest") into a third day, to be completed on the trainer while watching NFL playoffs. :)

Not Included in the Above Plan
I left off all references to strength-training and core-work on the above plan so as to not muddy the waters. Both are already a big part of my training regiment and will continue to be so. For reference, I generally do my cycling in the early morning and follow up that evening with my strength/core work. I also have not included any stretching

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Any thoughts you all have would be welcome. If I'm able to pull this training off successfully and injury free, then the next step would be to rest/recover.... AFTER THAT, I would re-evaluate my ability to use the FIRST program for the Berlin Marathon. That'd be sweeeeeeeeeet! But, lets take it one huge-ass race at a time.