@DopeyBadger , if you would give your opinion, please, I would appreciate it.
I have been thinking about getting more into trail running after this marathon, and trail races eventually. I'm privileged where I live to have access to paved trails through greenways, but I would still like to get more "off road", so to speak. There was a meme (that I can't find now) on the Trail Runners reddit that was something like "Road running feels like exercise. Trail running feels like an adventure." - it really hit home. Even though I am slower on trails, I feel stronger and, well, like it's adventure. I also feel like there is less time pressure and more emphasis on enjoying the run.
So I have read a couple starting books on trail running in the past month or so. Using the suggestions in one book in particular, I have developed an 11-week recovery (from my marathon) and trail running base-building plan. It's in the PDF attached. I was hoping that you would give me your opinion of it and make sure there are no big problems.
Comments on it:
- I've gone with time goals instead of distance goals for each run to emphasize the need to stay in the "easy" range. With the variable terrain, pace goals aren't so good for trail running. My "easy" should be under 140 BPM. The "hard" that is listed later on is supposed to be as hard as I can run and sustain through the intervals.
- The first 3 weeks are the recovery, so all easy running and only 4 days/wk.
- The treadmill workout in the first 6 weeks was something specifically suggested for trail running training - basically power-hiking practice and also some harder effort with low impact. I am not sure what my speeds will be for this, so I'll have to experiment. This is also a good one to do in winter, since I wouldn't want to be on the treadmill any other time.
- After week 2, I've specified that the last 2 runs of the week (most likely on Sat/Sun) should be on trails.
- The mid-week hill repeat workouts are taken from one of the books. I have a hill in the neighborhood that I think will be good for it.
- The long runs have intervals in the middle, again suggested by the training book. The "hard" effort is supposed to be hard for whatever terrain I am currently on, since that might be uphill, downhill, etc. Each of these intervals has an equal length of time for recovery after.
- I tried not to increase each week's running time more than 40 min compared to the week before.
- Once I started on the base-building part of the plan in week 4, I put in a cut-back week every 4 weeks.
- The longest long run is 140 min, which I hope to be maybe 11 miles.
Please let me know what you think. If this plan goes well, and depending on what the 2021 race season looks like, I will make a plan based on the books for adding more mileage and maybe think about a trail half-marathon or something. Or maybe I'll decide that I don't like trails so much after all!
