With lots going on in life and training for a marathon and trying to get my fat down it takes a little planning — and being mindful things don’t always go to plan (work can be very reactive which can wobble my lunch run plans).

Around March last year I started planning my week using a grid, days have a row each and the columns divided the day up into:

  • early morning (6am to about 9am)
  • morning (9am to noon)
  • lunch (noon to 2pm)
  • afternoon (2pm to 5pm)
  • early evening (5pm to 7pm)
  • evening (7pm to 10pm)

I mark in my commitments — household helping, the kids, dog walk days, climbing, days away with work, trips to my mum or the football, any lunchtimes that work had bagged for meets, that sort of stuff — and work off that. It helped a lot.

A spread from my note book. The right hand page shows the grid I described previously.
A spread from my note book. The right hand page shows the grid I described previously.

There’s been some little tweaks over the months — to the time slots — but the weeks I do this it helps massively. The weeks I don’t I’m just plodding through.

This week I have planned for 54km over 6 days (runs of variable lengths and pace worked out elsewhere). Usually I lose 8km from my planned dist* ance due to other time pressures, so 46km will be a good return. Thursday is my regular rest from running day, with a gym session and climbing in the evening. This plan also makes it right clear when I’ve weekend commitments my weekday efforts need to stay on track and I’ve got to go to bed early on Friday for an early rise on Saturday. And I’ve managed to weave in some bike sessions too.

My weight this morning was 87.5kg, 12.3kg of which is fat. See how that is in a week (with some picky eating to help too).

And yes my handwriting is that terrible for notes to myself.


This post tagged with:
planning, running

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