The End is just the Beginning

Thus ended the Lydiard Base Building Phase. I ran a few weeks longer than most as I started 6 or 7 weeks earlier. The first 4 weeks were really to get going again, as I was sidelined by a bad IT Band issue, and had also taken quite the vacation from running from December till March. (I did run AT&T, and other fun trail runs, but nothing was time based. Simply fun running)

Starting this program off, I really had no idea how I was going to get the mileage I decided to get. Coach Sisson presented us with options of 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 miles per week in his Lydiard Base Building Macro, and I immediately decided I'd go for the highest mileage, and the decrease it, if I felt it was too much. I also felt that if I was going to go for 90, I might as well go for 100, as that's what was initially presented to me verbally.

(Right Click & Open in new window to see them larger)

TOTAL MILEAGE DETAILS:
Here's what my 20 weeks ended up looking like.
Weeks 1 to 5 were really weeks to get back into running, and the last 14-15 were the actual high mileage weeks.
The grey cells are the days I took off.
As you can see, when you don't involve any track work, speed work, hard hills repeats etc, you can pretty much run "forever".

WEEKLY MILEAGE TOTALS:

Here's a chart showing my weekly mileage increases, culminating with 3 consecutive 100 mile weeks. I ran a hundred miler in early July. That was a rough 100 miler as I finished it with an 18.6 mile trail race on the "Toughest 10-K course". Talk about a painful finish. I continued to build from there, and things got much easier once my running friends were up to the mileage I was at. The key was to have people to run with and really vary the running routes. We invented came up with some new fun routes, and also invented Free Running around town, which is really only possible if someone has a GPS (Garmin Pace Slave) on.




I'm not really too amazed by the mileage I poured on, because it really came pretty easily. Provided you're willing to sacrifice other things in life for a few months, and you have a job that is flexible in your arrival time in the morning, the weekly mileage load is something anybody* can do. *The most important thing being that you stay with the plan, and don't cause injuries by running too hard when you're not supposed to, and really listening to your body. Barton Springs' cold water, and regular leg massages were also key.


SATURDAY LONG RUNS
Here's my favorite graph. This one shows the distances for the last 16 weeks of my base building phase.

In past marathon training programs I've done, I think the high mileage Saturdays have totalled something like two 18 milers, two 20-22 milers and one 24 miler. That's 5 weeks over 18 miles.

Take a look at the graph. So far, I've already run:
18 miles - 2 times
20 miles - 5 times
22 miles - 5 times
24 miles - 4 times
(all these were run at easy long run pace, meaning 7:45 - 8:15 min pace.)

I think we'll continue these 20+ mile Saturdays. However, they'll undoubtedly get tougher and tougher, as we'll start adding speed, and Marathon Goal Paces to these runs.

WHAT'S NEXT?
One week of recovery - this week
Continued mileage, but probably in the 70-80 Mile per week range, I think. (We'll see)
A phase of Hills Hills Hills!
A phase of Track Track Track and Speed Speed Speed
And phase of mixing it all together to ready
Then we can just hope the planets align for the big day on December 7!