I have a plan

Time for my 2009 running shoes to be retired.  They have carried me through the Great North Run and the Toronto Marathon and over 800k of training.  So its off to see the lovely people at Coventry Runner.  I tell them I am thinking of going ‘off-road’.  They advise me that I probably do not need special shoes.  So I stick with what I am used to: another pair of Mizuno Waves, only this year with bright purple trim.

There are two obstacles to overcome before April 18^th.    Firstly, all my running so far (apart from a few shortcuts across Coundon Wedge) has been on roads, pavements and parks.  Footpaths, fields and the like are foreign to me.  So I have to get used to running ‘off-road’.  Secondly, advice on the A Coventry Way website says that challenge entrants should take maps with them.  I really do not want to do that.  By April 18^th I want to know the route. 

So the plan is that my Saturday long runs will all be on sections of A Coventry Way.  Section by section, the route will become familiar to me and my feet and legs will get used to running cross-country. 

Another essential part of the plan is the training schedule.  I look online and nobody seems to produce a ready-made schedule for a 64k (40 mile) run.  But I do discover the dark world of the ‘ultra’.  These websites are not dedicated to Italian football hooligans but people who seem to be equally fanatical.  Technically an ultra is any run longer than the marathon distance of 46k, but these nutters all seem to be talking about 50 or 100 mile runs and feature training schedules which culminate in five hours running on Saturday and another five on Sunday.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have a life.  So I simply modify my marathon schedule from earlier this year, just extending my longest training run from 35k to 45k.  Looking forward to that one.