Cheap Coach

I always get a little antsy during race week.  For one, I'm excited about the weekend's upcoming race (Indy Monumental Half).  I've got RACING on the brain, and yet I need to settle down and do less running this week so my legs are fresh come Saturday.  So I default into planning mode... Thus yesterday's rant on 2012 race planning {here}.

Today, I'm working on my next training plan.  I'm a cheapo and can't afford to hire some fancy coach to construct the perfect plan.  However, I still manage to create weekly training that kicks my ass (when I follow it!).  In the process, I learn a lot about running, muscle development and body functions.  Through online research and a lot of book reading, it's like I've gone back to college. I've got notebooks filled with detailed notes, recipes and inspirational quotes.  Over the past two years of building and following my own plans, I've also learned a lot about myself.... what works and what doesn't - both for the mental and physical states of ME.

I'm a work in progress.


Building My Training Plan...
TOOLS I USE
McMillan Running Calculator - Great tool to determine target paces for key runs.  Just type in your recent race time, and it spits you out a nice looking charts on equivalent performances and optimal training paces.  I've found these to be a tad moderate.  I can usually run faster, so I tend to enter in my "goal time" rather than a past performance.

Run Less Run Faster book - I've used this book so much that the pages are falling out of the seams!  Totally worth the $10 on Amazon.  See my full review on this book here.  Some runners can hit the road every day, but this body can't handle that.  Thus the 3plus2 run system of RLRF works well for me (although I'm more of a 4plus2 kinda gal).  The book has training pace charts similar to the McMillan Running Calculator, but I find the online version {here} easier to use.  The training plans in the book are extremely useful in providing a good skeleton for speed and tempo run structure.

Runner's World - There is always so much information on their site that I tend to get a little lost... but I always check it out and compare their Training Calculator results with the ones above.  They also have an abundance of Training Plans online, although it's disappointing that most are for purchase only.  I keep all the back versions of the magazine though, so I tend to pull those out when I'm designing a new plan as "research".

Back to work...  I'm getting close to building My Perfect Training Plan!

Do you build your own training plans?  What resources do you use?

Or do you follow a basic plan from a book or online?