Our3Day.com

If you are participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, you have no doubt started training by now. The 16-week point is approaching fast for Dallas walkers.

If you are an experienced walker or already can confidently do 3-4 miles in your sleep, you may not need to start with the 24-week program. I do the full program anyway, but I think it is a personal preference. The earlier you start building up your miliage and endurence, the more prepared you will be for the actual event. Having a few extra weeks of training definitely won’t hurt you!

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Also something you may or may not know is that the expected pace for each mile is 20 minutes. If you can walk 3 miles currently but are not clocking in at under an hour, you may need to train at a faster pace. Why? During the event each part of the course opens and closes at a certain time. If your pace is too slow, you may not make it to the next pit stop before it closes. In those cases, most likely a sweep van will pick you up and take you to the pit stop where you will then board a swag bus to lunch or back to camp depending on where on the route you are.

If you walk too fast, chances are you will have to wait at a pit stop before being allowed to continue since the entire route is not open at the same time and safety teams and sweep vans are still monitoring the previous part of the route.

One great thing about the year we walked is that they provided a schedule with the times the pit stops opened and closed each morning before you started the route. I believe they do this every year. My advice is if you know you are behind pace for whatever reason (maybe you got a late start, stopped for too many pictures, made a convenience store run) and want to continue walking for the rest of the day, take a sweep van to the next pit stop well in advance of it closing. That way you can keep walking the next part of the route and not risk having to be taken by bus to lunch or camp.

Do you have any great training tips, or techniques that have worked for you? Please share them in the comments.

Source: 3-Day Suggested Training Program. You can also find the 16-week program chart at this link if you are a registered participant. All other comments mentioned in this post are solely my opinion and suggestions. You should consult your doctor before starting any training plan.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.