Tuesday, July 12, 2011

WTF Smart Coach?

Runners World Smart Coach stinks. I loosely followed it training for the KBVCM, but it worked because I KNEW better. I've read enough training plans and ran enough half marathons to generally know that building, building, running 12 miles the week before the race and having NO taper will not work out well for the mortal runner.

I had hopes of following a schedule training for the Mad Half, and was planning on using a modified version of Hal Higdon's back-to-back marathon program. I ended up just running my feel and taking it easy in general, but making sure to get my long runs in and have enough of a rest period before the race.

My next scheduled race is a 10K on August 20, so just out of curiosity, I plugged my stats into Smart Coach to see what kind of training plan it gives me. It gave me the exact same plan as training for a half marathon! Huh?!? It even includes long runs starting at nine miles and working up to 11. Um, no. The longest I plan to run in prep for the 10K is seven miles.

Has anyone else used Smart Coach? What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. Haven't tried smart coach- but it sounds like something NOT to try!

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