Following - as in really following - a program by spoogie37

I am running in the Wokingham Half Marathon next February, and used SmartCoach to devise a training program. I have been running now for about five years, taken part in about eight half marathons, PB of 2:25. The program should, apparently, allow me to complete the WHM in 2:20. I've had programs before, generally of the form - 7 mile run Sunday, 2 miles on Tuesday, 5 miles on Thursday, 2 on Friday. What I haven't paid attention to in the past is differentiation between the runs - so the run on Thursday is just like the one on Sunday, only shorter. Really and truly I only have two speeds - jogging and sprinitng - with nothing in between.

So this program I'm trying to make things more specific. Starts today, with two miles easy. The program specifies a pace - 12:02 per mile. Thats slower than normal - I think my speed is roughly 10 minute mile. I've worked out roughly where the half mile points are to help me try and keep my speed low. The easiest way is probably to do it on the treadmill, in which case I can set the exact speed, but ultimately I will need to learn to do it on the road, so lets start that straight away.

The good news is that I don't have to learn that many speeds - I can see three on the program: 12:02 for easy and long runs, 10:24 for tempo, 9:49 for speedwork. These all seem to decrease over the course of the program - looks like the long and speed ones go down by six or seven seconds every four weeks, and the tempo by one second every four weeks.

Struck lucky in one respect - Christmas week, when the likelihood of keeping to the program is smallest, its just four easy runs of 4 miles - and Xmas Day itself is down as Rest.

Well, lets see how it goes ...

Best wishes

Spoogie