Publix Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon Blog

Trust the Training Plan

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In the words of Ms. Britney Spears, "Oops, I did it again."  What exactly did I do?  Well, I kind of stopped running for the month of December.  Yeah, oops. Way to lose my endurance.  

I usually run a fall half marathon. This year I did the Rocktoberfest Half in Charlotte, NC. It was the weekend before Halloween. I told myself that this year would be different.  After the race, I would keep running.  I would still do a long run each weekend and then when I started actually training for the Publix Georgia Half Marathon, I'd be ahead of the game.  But, like every other year, life got in the way and running took a back seat to trips to see family and other holiday related activities.

And here we are, the holidays are over...and a 5 mile run that used to be easy, is hard again. Like I said, this has happened before.  Many times.

But instead of getting mad or frustrated at myself, which is what I'd done in previous years, this year is going to be different in another way.  I'm going to embrace my time off.  Maybe it happens to me every December because I need the rest mentally if not physically.  Maybe I need to recharge my batteries, so to speak.

My favorite part of signing up for a race is getting my training plan together.  I've done a few different plans in the past - primarily Hal Higdon's or Runner's World (both free). 

I'm a big fan of organized training plans.  Maybe it's because I don't have the discipline to just run to run. There's something about seeing it all in print that makes me happy and confident, no matter how little I've been running before training "officially" starts.  One thing that I like to tell people who haven't done a race before is to trust the training plan.  Even if you can only run three miles.  Even if your plan doesn't have you running the full race amount beforehand (lots of them don't.)  If you follow it, you will be able to complete the distance even if you forgot to run for a month like I did.

Do you follow a training plan?  Or are you a more "run by the seat of your pants" person?