When Does Your Training Stop?
Vanilla had a post on the Half-fast blog about skipping his last race, thereby ending his running season. It made me curious as to when other people think their running seasons are over. Years ago, before I became
a streaking joggler, my running season would end after the Chicago marathon in October. I occasionally did Turkey Trots, Jingle Bell Jaunts, or Roudolph Rambles but these weren’t races. They were more like a joggling show.
My training season wouldn’t start up again until February. This was when I begin training hard for the Shamrock Shuffle.
In 2003, I did a January marathon so my season ended in October and restarted at the end of November. Now, I don’t know when my season is over.
It’s important to figure out your joggling season because you should be training differently during each phase. According to Jack Daniels in his excellent book Daniels’ Running Formula you break your training schedule into 4 distinct phases.
- Phase 1 – Easy running to build miles and endurance
- Phase 2 – Easy running, more miles, set baseline
- Phase 3 – Harder running, build speed, endurance
- Phase 4 – Rest & recovery. Build up to that final race.
In 2008, my goals are to beat my PRs in the 5k, 10K, Half marathon and Marathon. Doing the proper planning now will help make that stretch goal a reality.
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I consider my racing season over after my last race of the year, even if it’s only a 5K. Right now I’m doing almost entirely easy runs just to log the miles so to speak. I’ll pick up and start higher intensity training again in Feb or March.
Thanks for the link.
I generally consider my season over after the last race I care about or am training for. This year I did a Drumstick Dash but hadn’t really been training much since a race earlier in November. Since Thanksgiving Day I’ve been in the gym doing mostly cross-training and weight lifting before beginning to train again in January. This will be a base building stage before my half-marathon training starts.