Monday, March 8, 2010

Jack Daniels - Phase I plan

The Jack Daniels running formula plan is broken out into four phases of six weeks each:
Phase I - Base Building, Foundation and Injury Prevention (FI). Self descriptive.
Phase II - Early Quality (EQ). Focus on mechanics, economy, and some speed.
Phase III - Transition Quality (TQ). Toughest phase - focus on long intervals
Phase IV - Final Quality (FQ). Primarily threshold running.

Looking at the calendar, that puts the beginning of phase I on May 9. The first phase of the program is essentially running the same amount of time 7x per week for 6 weeks. There are also some strides and a long run or two in there as well. The major concepts in Phase I are:
- Add mileage no more than every 3rd week.
- When adding mileage, don't add more than 10 miles, or about 1 hr of weekly running to the previous total

The question of how much to run is dependant on the runner. Given that the couch to 5k will end with 3x per week of 30 minutes (90 minutes total), I think it'll break down in this fashion:
Week 1 (3/7) - 4 x 45 min (180 total minutes)
Week 2 (3/14) - 4 x 45 min
Week 3 (3/21) - 4 x 45 min
Week 4 (3/28) - 5 x 45 min (225 total minutes)
Week 5 (4/4) - 5 x 45 min
Week 6 (4/11) - 5 x 45 min
Week 7 (4/18) - 6 x 45 min (270 total minutes)
Week 8 (4/25) - 6 x 45 min
Week 9 (5/2) - 6 x 45 min
Week 9 (5/9) (Phase I start) - 7 x 45 min (315 total minutes)

The only aspect of this is that I'm not following the rule of increasing mileage every 3rd week right out of the gate. Basically, I'm going from 90 minutes to 180 minutes. However, I figure that I'm experienced enough that it should not be a problem, and if I'm going to do something stupid like double time from one week to the next, it should be in the beginning when the time and mileage is low. Really, the only major concern at this point could be the IT band, but the time involved is still low enough that I don't envision an issue.

No comments: