making plans

A couple weeks ago, I scheduled my long run milage from May 21st-November 5th. I have 2 big events this fall that I need to get ready for. 1) Bourbon Chase 200 mile relay on Oct. 7-8 and 2)RnR Savannah Half on Nov. 5th.


I read an article in runner's world a month or two ago that said you need to prepare for half marathon distance to properly prepare for a relay race. So starting this Saturday, i will do 4 miles and slowly go up from there. I have put in some local 5k's throughout the schedule that I plan on doing.  I used Runner's World "SmartCoach" to come up with my program.  I printed out both my 5k time with my 5k goal in mind and a half marathon time with my half marathon in mind.  I compared the two and found that a lot of the distances were the same, just the times were off.  So i combined them onto another document and wrote down both times. I am aiming to go under the times or at least stay in between the two.
I have two goals for 2011: 1) 2:45 in a half marathon and 2) 30:59 min or under in a 5k. The half being in November and the 5k in August (bc its a fast course).

Since I"m starting back up again this week, I thought it might be wise to go on and plan out my weekday runs and cross training as well. I am going to run 3 days a week and cross train 2-3 days, hopefully with a minimum of 2 until the end of June. Then it will bump up to 4 days of running.  One day will be easy runs, one day will be speed/interval work at a track, and the third day will be long runs. Adding a second easy day in once i move up to 4 days a week.

For cross training I plan to bike or swim on Sundays and Wednesdays. There is a local bike group that bikes on Wednesday evenings. I rode with them a few times last summer and would like to start it back up this summer. Plus, I'll be doing swim lessons occasionally during the summer and "water walking" (aka walking around in the pool while teaching a kid to swim) 4 days a week on those weeks for 45 minutes in addition to running, biking and swimming.

There is a sprint tri in September too, the one I did last year, that I would like to do again this year. If i'm going to be swimming, biking and running anyway, why not do a tri?!

So, that's pretty much my summer and fall in a nutshell. Any suggestions, questions, thoughts about it???