Pfitz Who?!

Pfitz, who's Pfitz? 

Oh yeah, he's the guy with the marathon training plans right out of Dachau.  I really tried to do Pfitz (I was looking at his 18/55 plan), but it was just too much too soon for me. 

While I've been floundering the last 6 or seven weeks, I realized that I have two problems:  I have pretty much been just running slow runs since my Half Marathon and I have been a slave to the "long run must occur on the weekend" theory.

Well this week I was able to tackle both issues.  I ran my long run on Tuesday.  As a Pastor, the weekends tend to be a little busy.  Working up to the Half Marathon, I could get away with squeezing in the long runs on weekends, but it's just not an option right now.

I also really missed speed and tempo work.  Thursday, I went out to the High School track and after warming up, I knocked out 6 X 800's--they felt great.  I think I really needed to step on the gas and blow the gunk out. 

What does all this mean for a training plan?  It means I'm going to follow the F.I.R.S.T. plan for a first marathon.  That would be the Furman Institute For Scientific Training.  Here's what I love about FIRST:  Just three: "Key Runs" a week--an interval, a tempo, and a long run.  In between these you are supposed to do two XT days--this week I worked in a 7 mile mountain bike ride and the other was a easy two-mile run. 
You can also do these key runs in whatever order works for you.  So this week, I did 3, 1, 2. 

7 miles tomorrow with 5 at tempo pace.