Quoth Hal Higdon:
… winter also can be an advantage, since it forces us to change training patterns. If we can’t do fartlek in the woods or repeat 200s on the track, we can at least run long and build our base mileage and aerobic fitness. The mere difficulty of running when the temperature dips below freezing makes us tougher.
Ever since I finished the 5K Intermediate plan back in October, I’ve been hunting for a new training plan. I’m a huge fan of Hal Higdon’s plans and his Winter Training and Cold Weather Running schedules looked pretty good. Both, however, were based on running time rather than distance. For some reason, I generally prefer distance targets.
Inspired by one of the plans I came across while searching, I decided to make my own. My goal will be to increase my weekly mileage from about 16-18 miles per week to around 25-30 miles per week.
A few guidelines:
- Weeks begin on Monday and end on Sunday.
- Run five days per week.
- Obey the 10% rule.
- No runs shorter than 5K.
- Weather permitting, do a “long run” on Sunday.
I’m not sure if winter is the best time to do this, or if I can even commit that much time to running… but I guess we’ll find out. Game on!
This sounds like my exact philosophy for winter running so far. I haven’t actually put a plan down on paper yet though.
I recently came across your blog and can completely relate to your training approach during the winter. I’m attempting to do something similar and will be following your progress.
After seeing your graphs, I might also look into investing in one of those Garmins!
Hey Bill,
The Garmin Forerunning was probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Got it for Christmas last year and have been running ever since. It acts as a great motivator for me, and I can’t say enough good things about it.
Note, however, that the fancy Winter Build-Up graphs were generated using MS Excel. The Garmin Training Center software is extremely limited and the graphing ability is actually quite poor. I ended up entering my weekly totals by hand into an xls and charting it that way.
- John