Base Building Week 1

This was my first week of the 8 week Hansons base building custom plan I purchases from Final Surge. I purchased the lowest mileage plan which was 40 miles per week, however I altered it to lower the mileage slightly as I did not want to jump right into a 40 mile week when I have been running about half of that. I achieved this by shortening the miles prior to and after a workout but not the actual run itself. Previously I discussed wanting to maintain my marathon fitness between now and my next race in January and this plan seemed like the best option rather than trying to repeat some of the Hansons Half Marathon plan into a shortened time period.


Here is what my week looked like:

Monday: Jasyoga - Power your pushoff
Tuesday: 3 mile fartlek with 1 mile warm up and cool down, Jasyoga - post workout recovery
Wednesday: 5 miles easy, Jasyoga - quick post run rest
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 3 mile tempo run at half marathon pace with 1 mile warm up and cool down, Jasyoga - full body recovery
Saturday: 5 miles easy, 20 min abbreviated Iron Strength Workout
Sunday: 8 miles easy with 6-10 strides, Jasyoga - recovery boost for runners
Total miles: 27

My overall thoughts on the first week of the plan was that it was challenging but fun. There are some new workouts added that are not included as part of the Beginner or Advanced marathon plans and I enjoyed the change of pace. Specially, the fartlek workout which is basically running as fast as you can for 2 minutes on and then recovering for 2 minutes off for three miles. I believe this is a special kind of torture reserved for Hansons followers! I will say that I felt pretty badass when it was over.

How I feel about the fartlek

I also enjoyed the tempo run. Initially I was not sure what to think about the tempo run in that my half marathon pace is about 39 seconds faster than my marathon pace. While I can certainly sustain my marathon pace for 3 miles, I was not sure if I had it in me to resort back to my half marathon pace and sustain it, but I had a fantastic run and achieved negative splits for each mile.

By Sunday I was pretty beat so the strides were difficult to do at the end of 8 miles. Strides are a build up to 95% full acceleration at the end of a run to increase stride efficiency and teach your body how to maintain good form at top speed. I am sure I will appreciate these come time for the race, but I had nothing left in me once this workout was over.

Fatigue Level:

As mentioned above, I topped out this week feeling tired but not over trained. My total mileage was much less than the 32 the plan called for, but I listened to my body and knew not to add on extra miles when I was not ready to. I took a true rest day on Thursday and managed my daily aches and pains with yoga.

Mental & Emotional Strength:

I started the week off unsure of how I would handle the plan but surprised myself in both the fartlek and tempo workouts. Because I handled both challenging runs so well, I really built my emotional strength up quite a bit and it is the best I have felt mentally since the marathon. The eight mile run was challenging but I focused on the scenery around me and allowed myself to run easy.

I love this trail!

Nutrition:

Being unemployed comes with a perk of having more time to prepare meals, so I have continued to work my way through some meals I have wanted to try but could not commit to the time. Now that I am also running earlier in the day I have had to shift more calories to my lunch instead of eating a snack before my run which has made it more difficult some days to find the right balance between fueling the run and recovering afterwards. I plan to work on this more in the remaining weeks of the plan.

I am looking forward to week 2 which is much different than week 1 to keep things interesting.