½ Marathon, newbie - training and diet help

Antony Grosvenor

Hi all,

Last year I started a journey to get fitter, and took the plunge for a sprint triathlon. Weighing close to 19st @ 6 foot tall and now 40 years old (yikes), i trained from March to September and finished the Tri (750m swim, 16 mile bike, 5 km run) in 2 hours. And lost 3 stone through that year.

My next challenge is a ½ Marathon in May, and the same Triathlon in September with maybe an Olympic somewhere - with the aim of getting fitter and losing more weight (2 stone or more).

Advise needed is on my current training plan for running - which I have simplified, as I was using Nike+ and MyAsics apps, but felt they were pushing harder than I should.

PB's to date:

5km = 25m 50 secs

10km = 57m 35 secs

Training plan for next 18 weeks is:

Monday - try club training - shuttle runs / 400m laps = 4 miles hard 

Tuesday - 3m easy (10min/mile)

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - 3m easy + swimming (750m / drills / 30 mins)

Friday - rest

Weekend - 7m easy + other activity (swimming various)

Will add some 5k / 10k race pace / race after week 4. Each week the long run will increase by ½ or 1 mile.

 

I have read that the longer runs and recover ones need to be slower than what I was doing them at. I used to run them @ 9min / mile pace, but now use my Garmin Fenix and HRM to ensure I stay within aerobic zone.

Questions:

1) Is the above plan good? By good I mean, will it enable me to be fitter / stronger to complete the ½ in under 2 hrs.

2) Diet - balancing weight loss and training. I use Myfitnesspal to log calories and have set it to weight / height and inactive = 1500 cals per day. Each training session is about 400 - 500 calories (long run 1000 cals) which i then add to the 1500. Is that enough / too little?

3) 10min / mile feels sooo sloowww.....

 

Apologies for my first lengthy post, and hope you can give advise to continue my journey....

Antony