Decisions Decisions

The beginning of marathon training is just around the corner and I need some help. With all the training programs out there, how can I know which is best for me? Trial and error with different plans over the course of a running career is probably the best way to hone in one the perfect program, but I've only got one marathon under my belt so far. For that marathon, I loosely followed a Runner's World program and it worked ok. My goal was to finish and I did. When I was training for my second program, I followed Coach Hal (Higdon), but that ended when I got injured. I am interested in seeing the Coach Hal program through, but when I was injured, I got to thinking that maybe there was a better program out there...one that promotes staying injury free. That's a BIG deal to me.

There's Jeff Galloway, who says that incorporating short walk breaks while running is the way to go. He argues that it can even improve your time, which (side note here) I'm not really interested in PRing cause my first marathon was so long ago. It would be great, but I just want to run it and finish it and not get injured in the process. That's not too much to ask, is it? I know people who swear by this method of running/walking.

And then there's the FIRST training plan, which promotes "run less, run faster." I hear that Melanie and Spike are following this plan. I'm kind of a slacker, so running 3 days a week sounds alright to me, but those 3 days of running have to be KEY workouts, which means lots of pace running and speed workouts and lots of using a stopwatch, I believe. I'm not so keen on that.

Now let's take a look at a sort of opposite method of training called RUNNING YOUR ASS OFF. Amy is currently following this plan with her 70 freakin miles per week (you overachieving showoff hussy you. just kidding. sort of.) and it seems to be working for her. However, this plan requires hard work, time, and lots of dedication, which lets be honest here, I'm not always willing to put forth. Like I said before, I'm a lazy biotch sometimes. RunnerMom is also just getting started with a high mileage, but slow pace marathon program and I'm very interested to see how that goes for her. The benefit of this plan is that I don't have to worry about killer paces and such. Plus, I'd like to be able to say that I run a helluvan amount of miles every week. I'm very vain like that. I like to portray myself as a bad ass.

So you see, I have a decision to make. Won't you please chime in with your .02?

Oh and...

Good Luck Amy!!!