It's so exciting that traini has "officially" started. I have been working on building a base during May and June but now I get to say, "sorry, I can't [insert whatever someone wants me to do that I don't want to do], I have to stick to my training plan". Haha. It's no excuses time. I do usually end up missing a couple of planned training runs somewhere along the way as life is messy, but it's fun to have things officially start.
This is my third wine and dine and fifth half so I decided to play around with making my own training plan this time. It's still mostly a Galloway 3x a week concept but I'm adding in one additional day of walking (or two depending on how I feel). When training for a race this spring I found that additional miles, even walking, helped my running feel a touch easier. So anyway, 3x of running with one of them speed work until my annual 10k race in September is over, an easy run, and the long run on the weekend. I am running 4.5 this weekend which I haven't done since April. I have found that a slower build up in the beginning keeps me from getting the "too much too soon aches and pains" that used to happen to me. So my long runs were (or will be) 3.75, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, 5, 8, 9.5, 5, 10, 5, 11, 6.2(race), 8, 11, 6, 12, 5, (race). I like to go two or three weeks in a row of increasing my long run distance and then a cut back vs galloways plan. Also since I don't do walk intervals (I basically put walk breaks in where water or fuel breaks would be) I don't like to go up past 13 miles like his plan does and instead just keep my weekly mileage up w that extra walk day. Not sure why I just wrote all that out to you guys but I love training plans almost as much as Disney vacation plans!!!
Oh and as for the "warm up included" question, I typically include my warm up and cool down in my mileage unless I'm training for a short race (like 5k). I figure adrenaline always pushes me thru the end. It messes my average pace, but since I know I'll be stopping at least once for the bathroom, it's ok for me to see my average pace not at a true running pace but more like a race time pace. (Ie if I run 12 min miles but my average pace is more like 12:30 bc of the stop or the warm up).
I am happy to see so many garmin lovers. I bought my garmin when I signed up for my first wine and dine as the whole thing was a big "look what I'm doing for myself for my birthday!" And I love it. I have the 610, which is admittedly much more than I needed but I love to see all the different screens and even see if I can beat my previous times. It's an older model tho and doesn't sync with he garmin connect app without going thru my pc.
Good luck everyone with training! I'm so excited!