Which sessions to miss?

by Tom O'GARA
(France)

What sessions to miss in the schedules :

"Hi Marius

I'm entering the 1st week of the 3:15 plan with a view to run 3:30-3:40 after completing NY in 3:57 following the 3:30 plan.

I didn't miss any sessions when I was following the 3:30 plan except due to injury at the beginning and have settled on the 3:15 plan for some variation in the program and to see how much I can improve.

My question is this: With 3 children under 6yrs I know it will be a struggle to run out 5 times a week, every week, as during winter the kids will invariably fall sick. In general the plan is 3 hard runs and 2 easy per week. Which of these should I choose to "drop" if circumstances prevent me from running. One of the "hard" or 1 of the "easy"

Thanks

Tom"

Answer: Hi tom and thanks for your relevant question.

Since you are an experienced runner, you can do the following :

1) Cut down one of the easy runs and instead add a little bit of warm up to the hard runs.

2) If you need to cut down two runs a week, you have to take away one hard run (the shortest) and one of the easy runs.

Also, it is more important to be "strict" on the schedule in the marathon specific weeks vs. the other weeks - so you can really play around a bit with the schedules those other weeks, more so than the marathon ones.

In either way you should be ok.

And IF you have a day or two where you have all the time in the world, do not hesitate to double up that day (two easy runs or one easy + one hard) :)

all the best,
Marius