How tricky can it be sometimes to stay on track with your training plans? Sure, the motivation may be there, but time management skills could seriously be slipping. I know personally as a bachelor’s student, my day will instantly fall apart if I don’t plan it out properly. I learned this the hard way; by missing strength training days that I shouldn’t have, or forgetting to roll out and paying for it dearly the next day.
If I wanted to continue being serious about running, something had to give. My hugest issue is procrastination, so lack of procrastination coupled with organization would help me, (and you) be able to stay on track and crush those prs! I do two things that help me stay on top of things, and like to call them macro planning and micro planning. I’ll start with macro planning first.
Macro Planning
Here I focus on the bigger picture. What am I training for? How many days of running will this require? How many miles? I then reference my calendar in my phone, (which I would die without), to see what my daily, weekly, and monthly commitments are. From there, I’m able to see what days are write-offs. For instance, on Tuesdays I have class from 9:10am-9:30pm and won’t get back home until 11:00pm. On a day like that (unless I get out of class early or start late), I just count it as a rest day and move on.
Micro Planning
This is when I plan how each particular day will play out. I usually have a to-do list in my phone that I can check off when I’ve completed each activity (running related or not). If I have a long run, this will require a couple hours of my time to account for the actual run, stretching/rolling out, and showering. A shorter run will only take about an hour to do all those things, so if I have a day where I have a few more things going on, I should still be able to squeeze that in. The biggest tip during micro planning is GET THE RUN DONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The longer you put it off, the more likely it is that you won’t do it. When it comes to running, I run as early as possible in the day since I tend to get stomach upsets if I run after I’ve eaten. If this isn’t possible, I give myself as much time as possible to digest whatever I’ve had before I head out.
To get a full picture of my running and non-running commitments, I put both my running schedule and non-running schedule in different colours in my phone calendar so that I can tell them apart. As the week goes on, things obviously change. You may get sick, you may get held up doing something…if this happens it’s ok! That’s why I plan for the worst. I don’t put rest days into my schedule unless I know for sure that my day can’t accommodate a workout. That way, if something does pop up, I have the rest day get out of jail free card. If I make it to the end of the week and have to use my rest days because I haven’t yet, I obviously do. I just don’t like to put them in right away in fear that I use them prematurely.
-Running Fast, Lifting Heavy
Running Fast, Lifting Heavy 
Great balance of micro and macro planning.
I agree about getting the run out as early as possible! But I’m surprised about your method of rest days. I plan my rest days as a part of my week because I know I can look forward to them and plan other things on those days. Plus, the rest day after long run day is mandatory for me. Keeps me from getting injured too often!
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At first, our approach to rest days were the same. I found that I would account for rest days, and then other things would come up in the week on other days which would screw me over.
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