There is a 20+ mile open water race in Massachusetts called  the Blackburn Challenge.  I would like to enter it and do reasonably well.

The time to complete the race is between 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 hours, and so it is roughly similar  to 50k on the erg.  I thought that the best way to prep for that was to use an existing Marathon training plan.

There are two that I know of.

• Eddie Fletcher Marathon Training Plan
• Indoor Sport Services Online Marathon Training Plan
  (This one may ask you for your email to get to)

I analyzed both of the plans and they both seemed reasonable.  There were some cool things in the indoor sports services plan, but the Eddie Fletcher plan came with some impressive personal endorsements, and it was considerably simpler.

It is basically a 12 week plan, but I will run through it twice in a row, hopefully resetting my targets between sets.

I did a detailed day by day spreadsheet to track progress.  I figure the easiest way to let people look at it is to make it public on Google Sheets.

Blackburn Training Plan

So far, so good.  But I’m about to lose a week, so who knows how much damage that will do.