This is obviously going to vary massively depending on what your goals are and what your starting point is. Being a former rower my starting fitness was pretty good. In general I probably do some sport or exercise every day. When I signed up to MdS, about year before, I had just had major abdominal surgery so was broken down into four three month blocks. Breaking it down is important otherwise you just have endless sessions and it feels like you are never moving forward.
Block 1
With my rehab complete I could train again. I began a three month plan to get me ready to start marathon training. This included strength work, rebuilding my core with rowing and HIIT workouts and starting to get back into running.
Block 2
Marathon training. I got a free 3 month plan from Strava and decided I would do 3 proper runs a week. My thinking here was that I wanted to avoid overtraining and injury. The other days I played tennis, football or went to the gym. I made sure I had one proper rest day each week. My running consisted of and long run, a faster speed session like yasso 800s and a shorter easy run. I gradually built the distance of the long runs up and culminated with a marathon run on the last day of the 3 months. The plan followed a 3 week cycle of difficulty, easy, medium and hard, before starting again.
Block 3 and 4
That last two training blocks were MdS specific training. I planned out 6 months or training that would introduce running with a backpack and longer distances. I stuck with the 3 week cycles and gradually built the distance and weight up. To start with I was just running with an empty pack for 1 extra short run per week and would gradually add 1kg bags of porridge. If I was increasing the distance I wouldn’t increase the weight.
I had decided I wanted to go to MdS confident that I could cover big distances so I planned in 2 ultra runs a 60km and a 50km and a big back to back weekend of 30k each day. The 60k would be the culmination of block 3 and the big double the culmination of block 4 before a 2 week taper. Following the 3 week cycle the shortest long run was a half marathon ranging out to marathon distances. On the ultra runs I introduced some walking since this is pretty representative of MdS. On the 60k I ran 5k walked 1k. This was amazing, both physically and mentally in getting through 6 hours of running.
It’s obviously hugely important to come up with a plan and to follow it. I drew my plan up on a calender and attached it to the fridge. I would cross off the days and sessions and if I couldn’t do a session I would have to justify it on paper. That said - it’s also important to listen to your body. Approaching the end of block 4 with the big double weekend ahead I got on a treadmill to run an easy 15k with my back pack, by the time I got to 4k I was was barely hanging on. I decided at this point to scrap the big final weekend and begin a 3 week taper. It was the best decision I made in all my training.
By the end of my training pretty much all my runs apart from speed sessions where with my pack with between 4kg and 7kg of porridge and 2 full water bottles depending on the distance.
In terms of injury prevention I noticed that I tended to get knee pain which was traced to my ITB. Contrary to popular belief you can’t stretch your ITB as it is a tendon and what you really need to do is stretch and strengthen the muscles in your hip that connect to it. With this in mind I did at least one strength training session per week, with squats, dead lifts etc and included a core session at the end. During this core session and at least one other time during a week I did specific exercises to strengthen these little muscles. If you know where you week spots are you must devote some time to injury prevention. It’s boring but completing MdS without so much as a niggle made it well worth it.
In the 2 weeks in the run up to departure I started my heat acclimation. You can find a heat chamber and go do some running but I decided to keep it simple (and cheap) and used the sauna in my local gym. I sat in there everyday for 14 days building up from managing 20 minutes until the last day when I sat in the sauna for 50 minutes. As I understand it this was plenty to get the heat adaptations you need (more blood plasma and earlier onset of the sweat response).
If you are still not sure what to do and are looking for a personalised training plan and someone to keep you honest (don't underestimate the psychological benefits of paying for a plan!), get in touch with me here. We can arrange what works best for you with either; £50/month for a personalised monthly training plan as well as a check in every 2 weeks, or for a one off £150 I'll provide you with a personalised 6-9 month plan to set you on your way to finishing MdS.
Listen to the podcast here.
留言