Background and Week 1

Background:

I am a 29 year old male in the US military.  I am 6 feet tall, and before starting training I weigh 220 pounds and have an average weekly mileage of around 20-25 miles.  I am currently deployed and do not have many choices as to my nutrition, but I try to be moderate in the things I eat.  I have a serious sweet-tooth and allow myself to indulge a couple of times a week.  I run because I love to, and also  because of my sweet-tooth.  While deployed I work 12 hour days most of the week and am trying to fit my training into this schedule.

To me there is very little in life that compares to the feeling you get when you keep going on and pushing your body, and get “into the zone” on a run and everything else other than moving fades away.  The world could start ending around me while I am on a run and I am pretty sure I would ignore it. 

My current goals are to train for a 50k during my deployment and keep working on the UltraMarathon distance. 

My current training plan incorporates time on my feet, no matter how tired my legs are, and a couple of hill workouts.  However, where I am located, there are hills everywhere, so every run I do turns into a hilly run at some point.  I take no credit for the training plan I am using, I found it online at: http://running.competitor.com/files/2012/11/46_nat_r1.pdf.       I altered the schedule to fit my long days, and my days off.

My modified schedule fits something like this:

MON- 1 Hour medium effort

TUE- 45-60 min easy run + core workout

WED- OFF

THURS- Hilly run or hill repeats

FRI- 1:15-1:30 easy run + core workout

SAT- OFF

SUN –Long run

Week  1:

I will give a brief gloss over the past week, simply because I am writing at the beginning of week 2.

Last Monday was the start of week 1 with one hour of medium effort.  One of the things I really like about this plan is that the focus is not on mileage, but on time and personal effort.  Currently my focus on effort works like this.  With a medium effort run, I try to run around a 9-9:30 mile.  On an easy day run like Tuesday, I try to run between a 10-12 minute mile.  I am also trying to incorporate some sprints into my morning workouts.  I run in the evenings for all days except for my long day which I try to get done in the morning. 
 
This past Thursday I skipped my run.  My Friday run was probably one of the best runs I have had in the three months I have been deployed.  The hour and a half simply flew by in no time and I was done before I knew what had happened.  The same thing happened on my Sunday run.  However, I need to remember to wear sun block for my longer runs in the mornings because when I got done the whole left side of my face and my left arm were quite red from the sun being on that side of me almost the whole time. 
 
All in all, it was a very good week 1 for my training plan and I absolutely love the increased mileage.  According to my GPS app, and my heart rate monitor watch I burned approximately an extra 4500 calories throughout the week.  I have had very little soreness in my legs and no pain in my joints.  I am sure part of this is due to properly refueling with protein and carbs after my runs, and taking cool showers after my longer runs. 

This week, I will be keeping most of the same schedule, with a 12 mile run on Sunday.