 There we go, there we go, bringing you along this journey toward my first marathon and yes it starts now, six months from now, hopefully I will be running a marathon and it starts in the gym for me with light stretching, core work, a little bit of lifting, all that stretching machine is just kicking my butt. But I already made a little progress from two days ago and then the pool. I'm really excited and actually if you have any tips for the pool let me know but I'm really excited to take better care of my body as training increases, as mileage increases, the volume of running mixed with speed work, I know I'm gonna have to do better in 2019 taking care of as the, I think everyone in Europe calls it the niggles, those little aches and pains as we say here in America, like those little niggles they can really come back to bite you if you don't take care of yourself. So anyway the pool is gonna be key for that in 2019, I'm excited to just stay as nimble as possible. Okay, 2019 here we go, the training schedule, first of all I said this two days ago. First tip for planning out your racing schedule and you probably, many of you probably already do this naturally, it's pretty basic but it's a good reminder, know your why, know your why. Why are you racing this particular race? Maybe it's to challenge yourself to go from a 10k to a half marathon. Maybe it's to inspire yourself to lose a little weight, like to get a little more fit, a little more lean. Maybe it's to raise money for a charity. Maybe it's to complete your first marathon right here, right here, that's me. Maybe it's to see a new place of the world that has a beautiful marathon distance race or an ultra race and you're gonna travel around the world to this location to experience a new culture. So tip number one, know your why and it's really important to have a really solid why. Point number one, tip number one, before you plan your 2019 training schedule, you cannot plan a training schedule if you do not know your peak races, alright. I am starting to hone in, actually I'll just call it right now. If I register and I'm accepted but I think I will be. The Pike's Peak Ascent is August 25th, that'll be my second peak race. It's here in Colorado, it's a half marathon up a 14,000 foot mountain, I'm so excited for it and then my first marathon probably will be in June, I'm honing in on the Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, we'll see, we'll see again, I have to contact the race director January 1st to see if I can get into the elite field and I'll talk about why I'm leaning toward that marathon over others and if I don't get into that marathon then I will definitely be doing a marathon in the fall, either the CIM out in Sacramento or potentially an East Coast marathon waiting to, I'm working on that with someone that I know. So anyway, got to know your peak races before we can dive into this and on that note, let's go out to the shed and get down to the details. Alright we're out in the shed, there's so much to cover on this topic of building a training plan for 2019 and this is not a vlog or a video about specific workouts, this is about the macro level 30,000 foot view looking down upon my 2019 calendar year with flexibility built in. Make that point clear, this is why you saw me inside there researching the marathons, researching the half marathons, by the way thank you for all the comments a couple days ago about the Grandma's Marathon which I'm interested in and then just sharing about half marathons across the United States that are coming up, I haven't registered yet, I'm working on that but peak races are like you have to have those peak races in order to work backward in your training schedule, so that is point number two, once you have chosen a peak race which we love peak races as runners because like that's where we can strive for PRs, strive for maybe podium finishes or strive, who knows maybe even to win prize money or even just simply like to say to yourself I want to improve my overall health and fitness by five to ten percent in the new year, like anyway peak races are a beautiful thing but once you have chosen the peak race you have the date on the calendar and then what I like to do is work backward from that date literally on a physical calendar and I know this is old school but this is what I do, I work backward, I count how many weeks do I have until the peak race is going to happen, so then I know in my mind okay I have for example for Grandma's it's 25 weeks from now which is a little under six months that's a lot of time that's good and then from Grandma's to the next peak race for me in 2019 it's the Pikes Peak Ascent which is nine weeks, also pretty good, not it not perfect but pretty good, so once you have your peak races chosen you can then build begin to build your training blocks and this is point number three, we can't stay at the top of the mountain forever meaning at our peak level of fitness like our body will break down and you'll get injured or you'll just burn out and so we need to have valleys and peaks in our training, valleys and peaks, connected to peak races connected to the calendar based upon how many weeks you have to work with will impact your training block, this is what I like to do, three months of aerobic development one month of anaerobic development, so four months leading up to a peak race and this is if you do the math 12 divided by four is three and that's why I love to shoot for two to three peak races in a calendar year, now we can't get into the science behind aerobic versus anaerobic but I will just say I lean toward more aerobic training versus anaerobic training and I wish I could get into the details of that like pH level in our blood and how that impacts our overall body health anyway we're not going to get into that right now but our aerobic development as especially as half marathon and marathon runners like it's so so critical and what is what is aerobic development basically our body's ability to deliver oxygen to all of our all of our muscles and as through our bloodstream so anyway we won't get into the details of that but that is what I like to do three months of aerobic development so long running long slow running sometimes like it's not too exciting just getting in the miles and I will just give you one more detail when I start my training on January 1st I will run 15 to 20 miles that first week which is you know not too much and then I will add 10 miles a week 10 miles a week 10 miles a week until I feel as though my body is reaching that limit of aerobic development where I'm like okay I'm getting a little tired here I don't want to go too far but I also don't want to you know I don't want to hold back either there's over training in running and there's under training like you all have probably experienced over training so a lot of you have already shared that with me down in the comments but what about under training huh as we don't often hear about under training so we got to walk that fine line at times and so for training block I like to lean toward four months is like the ideal amount of time for me so that is my overarching training block philosophy and then for this year leading up to grandma's I'm gonna have a mini peak in March come down a little bit and then another big peak leading up to grandma's in June and then I'll come down again and then go back up for August come down again way down and then maybe maybe a big peak in late 2019 for another marathon we'll see about that but that is my overarching kind of wave of 2019 training blocks and then drilling down just a little bit and this is a little side tip that I'm just uh and this is based a little bit upon your your flexibility with your life and I realize everybody has to work many of you have families like it's just a busy world out there but I would say don't be afraid to break out of the weekly training cycle a lot of people do a long run every week which is awesome but if your body is starting to bark at you and say hey I'm getting a little tired in this training block I need to back off a little bit don't be afraid to say okay I'm gonna do a long run on Sunday and then I'm gonna do a long run in 10 days from now rather than seven days from now but of course it is impacted a little bit by your work schedule by your life schedule but if you could squeeze it in maybe at night especially in the summertime or maybe early in the morning but I'm just always a little uh shocked at how everyone has to get in their long run every single weekend which is good if you are feeling fresh and healthy but don't I guess like like the seven like who's who made up the rules that we have to stick to a seven day training cycle don't be afraid anyway that's like a little tip that I lean toward especially in the summertime when the days are longer I'm breaking out a little bit of that seven day training cycle and bumping it up usually to like 10 days so like if it's if there's 30 days in a month that means you'll have three training cycles or three three weeks but it's really an extended week of training in in one month does that make sense and just a couple more points before we wrap up back to the calendar I like this paper calendar because it allows me to see the entire year right in front of me and I know you can do this electronically uh but I prefer to write it out with a pencil make sure you have a pencil so you can go back in a race and rather than set in stone I'm gonna run 50 miles this week no matter what I like to give a range so usually I do a 10 mile range so like you'll you just see here like here's 70 to 80 miles 80 to 90 miles 90 to 100 miles we'll see we'll see but like it's it's better to instead of feeling pressure like oh my gosh no matter what I have to hit you know 60 miles this week give yourself a range and maybe it's a 15 to 20 mile range I wouldn't recommend anything over that because then you can get maybe a little too uh relaxed but definitely don't hesitate to have a range for your mileage and then you can just go week by week month by month building your training schedule and then once you have your goal mileage laid out oh then you start plugging in the workouts and that's when it gets fun and exciting and I'm really excited to share with you like specific workouts once 2019 uh starts rolling I will share with you like specific workouts whether it's mountain running um you know fart lick running whether it's strength training running I have ideas for that for you guys um or whether it's just simply getting on the track and doing you know speed work on the track like that's important too so anyway that is how I like to do it and then I also track my running of course through Strava and by the way let's connect down below if we haven't connected already on Strava and then as backup yes I do it on a spreadsheet as well so an electronic spreadsheet just to track things but I first start here on paper so I have a general vision of what I'm looking at for 2019 I know I just covered a lot I hope that made a little bit of sense please please ask your questions down in the comments and maybe better yet if you have really specific questions email me because I'm not saying I can answer every single comment in detail but if you find my email here on YouTube on the desktop version I will respond to you it might take me two or three days but I will respond to you and um but I hope that made sense all right I love you guys keyword of the day blocks for training blocks that's right blocks like a square cube blocks and the question of the day what do your training blocks look like how do you build them what do they look like maybe even specifically in early 2019 like share as much as you and maybe you don't have training blocks and that's okay but maybe you're trying to build one maybe now because of this video you're interested in building training blocks into your annual training schedule so I'm so excited for this topic again thank you for bearing with me that was a lot to cover and I wish I could have talked all night but I gotta let you guys uh eat your breakfast or go to bed one of the two seek beauty work hard and love each other