As I have been reviewing my older training run material and developing my running plans for my next set of races I realized I never really did an analysis of my training for the Goofy Race and Half Challenge in January 2013. For my current plan and the plan I used for the Manitoba Marathon in June 2013 see: 18 week training plan
So below I will show what my training plan was and what I did for actuals to see how I did with following my plan. Now it is important to note that when I signed up and started training for the race I didn’t really have a good plan – for the first month or more I was waffling between doing a few different plans and finally I decided to follow the plan laid out by Lee Hoedl – jumping in at around week 7 of the plan – for this reason I don’t show any scheduled runs before October 23rd, 2012. (he has his plan here: http://www.hoedlshaven.com/DISNEYMARATHON/goofychallenge.html – it should be noted that Mr Hoedl has updated his plan for the new Dopey Challenge so it is a bit different now versus when I was looking at it originally)
In the end I don’t think I did too bad – while I was training I was taking a university course after work and still dealing with all the hectic fun that comes with having kids so sometimes runs had to be juggled and other times they were just dropped completely. We also had an early winter here in Winnipeg which shortened some runs and made me move indoors to the treadmill much sooner than I had hoped.
So how did I do?
Total recorded miles from Sept 5th, 2012 to January 9th, 2013 – 500.87
Total scheduled miles from October 23rd, 2012 to January 9th, 2013 – 444
Total recorded miles from October 23rd, 2012 to January 9th, 2013 – 387.68
Total missed miles – scheduled versus actual – 56.32
Longest missed run that was not rescheduled – 12 miles
Total number of scheduled runs from October 23rd, 2012 to January 9th, 2013 – 57
Total number of runs completely missed and not shifted – 9
Missed mileage scheduled versus actual – 12.7%
Missed runs scheduled versus actual – 15.8%
So obviously I was not religious about the training but I did make damned sure I hit the back to back long runs and never missed a scheduled 20 miler (there were 3) and never completely missed a run over 12 miles long.
Now I completed the Goofy Challenge in my best ever times (of the 3 I have done – my personal bests on the half and full are lower than this but are from many years ago) – 2:20:34 for the half and 5:25:54 for the full. I was slowed heavily on the half due to being in a jammed up coral and having to run quite a bit on the side of the road and then on the full I got spanked by the heat but still completed strong and upright. The next day I felt great and was able to wander the Disney parks without any problems – no injuries at all – I could have gone for a run the day after the full. See my race reports here: Goofy Challenge Collection I did keep training after the Goofy and did the WPS Half Marathon in Winnipeg in May in 1:56:13 and the Manitoba Marathon in June in 4:40:09.
My take away from this was that the longer runs were vital – these must be done – I’m sure the reason I finished without any injuries and felt so good after was because I got all these runs in.
Additional take aways:
- missing a run or 2 is not the end of the world but be conscious of what you are doing and always find time for the longer runs
- I wasn’t as fast as I would have liked – most of my missed runs were the shorter ones where I should have been working on my speed more
Below is a spreadsheet comparing my scheduled runs versus my actuals.
