Setting a goal

The goal of our event will be for each team to accumulate as many miles as they can. The big question will be whether you will personally walk or run your miles. Running of course requires more effort, and is harder on the body if you’re dealing with any knee, hip or back injuries. Walking, on the other hand, is something most people are able to do, and the intensity is relatively low. However, walking is much slower, and it will take longer to accumulate more miles. You could technically walk a marathon, but at average walking speeds, this is going to take 6-8 hours!

We encourage everyone to pick a goal that is achievable, but one that will challenge your current fitness a bit, whether you choose to walk or run. In both groups, a good starting point is taking on a distance longer than you’ve ever covered before. If you’ve already completed several ½ or full marathon events, maybe aiming to complete one faster is a more worthy goal. For those who start out as walkers, maybe as you gain fitness, you can start to include a bit of running as well. Employing a run/walk strategy is perfectly valid and will shorten the time that you have on course.

There is a certain point as well where running a little bit becomes easier than trying to walk faster. Around 4 mph (15-minute miles), walking starts to require a lot more effort unless you’re an Olympic race-walker! It might be that running short sections at 5 mph (12-minute miles) is actually a bit easier once you’ve built up to it than trying to walk at 4 mph or faster. Even if you are able to start by running 100 yards or a ¼ mile and then walking for a while, in time you may be able to extend this duration.

Training Volume

Whatever you decide, we’ll have plan to help support you through your chosen distance and form of locomotion. The key to success will be consistency in your routine, and building incrementally as your fitness develops. Below, you’ll find some training advice that applies to all distances and forms of locomotion, as well as the corresponding training plans for the 15-week program.

A consistent workout regimen is fundamental both to successful preparation for an event, as well as long term health. Our programs will be built around 3 days a week of walking/running, an optional 4th day or cross-training workout, and two days of strength and core stability training. This may seem like a lot at first depending on what you’re already doing, but start with something you’re comfortable with and add as you get more into the routine. Even if you do a bit less than the planned workouts on a weekly basis, you’ll be better off in the end if you can do that each and every week rather than having a week with a lot of training time followed by another week with several missed workouts.

As the plan progresses, the amount of training volume in the key workouts will increase. That means that work done in the beginning is important preparatory work for the longer workouts later. Being sure to hit the steps along the way not only develops fitness, but gives the body time to adapt gradually so that you minimize the risk of injury.

Time vs. Distance

For the walking and running workouts, you’ll see volume expressed as both time and distance. During the work week, our schedules tend to be a little more constrained, so it’s more important to fit in what we can and it’s often easier to think of that in terms of minutes rather than mileage. But one weekend workout will be a progressive duration endurance session, and whether you’re walking or running, it will be important to complete a target distance to be sure you’re ready for your goal distance in November. You don’t have to be on a specific schedule or time pressure to complete it, just commit to putting in the miles.

Cross-Training

The heart of the plan is three aerobic training days, two during the week and one on the weekend. We also plan a fourth aerobic workout option on the weekend and recommend cross training. This could be a bike ride or a swim workout or even a multi-player activity like tennis or others (assuming you’re able to effectively social distance during these times). If you’re enjoying the running or walking, you could also add a fourth day in this same activity, or as a runner have a walking or hiking day that allows for some lower intensity but still provides some good training volume.

Strength Training

Along with the endurance training, we also recommend strength training in some form twice a week. There will be two good options available to you through this plan, one being Pilates classes with Janine, and also some strength workouts through Precision Nutrition that have modifications depending on if you’re training at home or at a gym. Maintaining a good strength training regiment is an important component of overall health because it targets the muscles specifically and promotes bone strength. Both of these factors become increasingly important as we age, helping us to retain ability to perform basic daily tasks and stay healthy through increasing endurance training volume.

Nutrition and Hydration

Just as in training, nutritional consistency is a key component of long-term success. Eating a well balanced diet that contains plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, healthy fats and an appropriate amount of carbohydrates for your training load will help you to feel at your best. If weight loss is a goal for you, limiting the carbohydrate intake to some extent while maintaining good habits with the other food groups is a good place to start. However, in your longer workouts, especially as volume increases, carbohydrates are also an important source of energy. If you start to feel chronically tired, or run short of energy in the longer workouts, more carbohydrate may be the answer.

Here though, thinking more about nutrition specifically around your periods of exercise, before, during and after. The shorter weekday workouts shouldn’t require any special planning, just following normal dietary guidelines should provide plenty of energy. Weekend workouts may start to stretch out beyond an hour, and for some even beyond 2-3 hours. In these cases, supplementing your energy with easily digested foods during exercise can become very important. Sports foods and drinks are readily available for this purpose, but you could also make due with fruit, granola bars or cut up a small sandwich in quarters and have a corner each hour. Overall, aim for 100-200 calories per hour of exercise (when exercising longer than an hour).

Since we’ll be starting this program in some of the hottest months of the year, hydration is very important in every workout. Take a water bottle with you every time, especially with many of the public fountains turned off right now. For longer workouts, you should take in a bottle every hour (16-20 oz of fluid). This means you may need to bring multiple bottles, have a plan for a place to stop and purchase more, or consider a hydration pack to be able to carry more fluid. If you use a sports drink, you can meet both your hydration and energy needs in the same package. As we get into late September, October and November, it shouldn’t be as hot outside, but hydration remains an important part of your training. You may not sweat as much, but you will still sweat so replacing those fluid losses helps to keep you performing well.