We’re fast approaching the Wine and Dine Challenge and before we know it, we’ll be closing in on January’s races. We’re putting in lots of miles (truth!) and building our endurance, speed, and strength (I like to think so anyway). We’re following the training plan we selected after a couple of weeks of research back in late summer. How did we decide on this particular plan and what is it? I’ll explain.

Dopey Challenge 2020 – Choosing a Training Plan

The most important aspects we considered when deciding on a training plan were that it needed to be both adequate and realistic. We want to be prepared for our events and complete them in relative comfort. We also don’t have unlimited training time and need quality training versus a large quantity of miles. We can fit in long runs on weekends and prefer the longest of those be scheduled on Sundays. We also have time for speed work, tempo runs, and strength training, but in relatively limited time windows.

There are a lot of free training plans available on the interwebs and as I plied my mad Google skills on the hunt for race prep perfection, I quickly became overwhelmed. Information overload! I kept coming up with new plans to run by Joseph and he, never having completed a marathon (or the associated training for said event), kept agreeing to whatever new idea I presented. To narrow down the choices, I went straight to Dopey veterans for advice. First I found 2-3 Dopey Challenge Facebook groups (I like this one and this one the best) and then I searched for some tips on YouTube and BOOM! Just like that we found Hal Higdon’s Marathon Training – Dopey Challenge plan. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!!

This plan is exactly what we needed. Plenty of rest days, plenty of tempo runs and time for speed work. The maximum miles per week reaches 42.5 which sounds like a LOT but is manageable. We can get it done without killing ourselves or taking days off from work. We just finished week 5 of the 18-week plan and we’re feeling strong and optimistic (after escaping from one large angry dog!). An important component to this plan is that in a few weeks we will start to run consecutive days of short, medium and long runs to get ourselves ready for the actual challenge of running a 5K, 10K, half, and full marathon over four days. That’s what makes this plan perfect. Hal Higdon, you’re the bombdiggity!

If you’re interested in watching our YouTube version of this info, check it out here (our little channel could use some love). If you are training for a runDisney event, I’d love to hear from you!