So looking over my calendar this weekend I realized that I’m
less than four weeks out from the start of 2016 spring marathon training! So I
figure it’s as good of time as ever to review my training plan and process and offer up
some tips and links to plans that might work for anyone still on the fence for
their training.
I pasted a rough copy of my marathon training section below,
once again I’m going with a variation of the 18 week Hal Higdon Advanced 1
plan. I purchased this plan last summer in
anticipation for Chicago and I adapted well to it and it fit my schedule great. My training partner Bill also completed
the Hal Higdon Advanced 1 training for Madison and he crushed his goal. When Bill sent me the same Higdon plan a
couple months ago for our 2016 Grandma’s training it made total sense and as a
bonus I still have all the daily notes and content from the last session I can
look up to review. Now even though I did
purchase this plan, you can get the base of the plan itself for free online halhigdon.com
(link below)… I highly recommend browsing through their plans when looking to
make a decision on your training plan. (http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training-Guide). Plans typically range from 14-18 weeks for
marathons with a wide range of strategies, so you might just want to pick a
night to do some research to see what works best for you. If you are interested in purchasing a plan,
you can get them for about $30-40 from training peaks. With the purchased plans you use their web portal
and app which syncs with your Garmin and is much more of an interactive experience
with daily tips and feedback. You can
find the full list of training peaks plans along with some more info on the process
at (http://home.trainingpeaks.com/trainingplans/running/marathon
).
The #1 factor in a plan decision is the schedule itself and if I can fit into my life. Consistency
over time is going to be what gets you to that start line and ultimately that
finish medal so missing more than a couple workouts isn’t an option when it
comes to training for a marathon. There
are a loads of plans out there so don’t be deterred by some of the 6 days per
week advanced plans, if your goal is just to finish or even set a new PR you
can do it easily on a 4 day per week plan.
Also be honest when picking out a
plan, I wouldn’t pick out a plan that has you working out 5-6 days per week if
you are used to running 1-2. Marathon
training is meant to be challenging and fun but injuries are neither, pick a
plan that will push you but not run you into the ground. Not
sure what that could be?... take your few week's miles and get a weekly
average. That average should be around or lower than the opening weeks of your training plan. In other words, if you have been
running 20 miles a week and jump into a 40 mile per week plan I think you can
do that math there. Again the idea is to slowly ramp up and acclimate your body
over time with good consistency… did I mention the word consistency yet?
Once I have my plan locked in I grab my training calendar and
plot out all the workouts. I find when entering
in the calendar I’m able to better identify any scheduling conflicts where I
will need to adjust my workouts. I don’t
know about you but I would hate to miss out on a critical workout because of a dental appointment I could have identified. I’ll also go through my potential spring
race lineup at this point and figure out what races I’m able to fit into my
schedule, what I have to drop and what new races I can find to add in if needed… the general rule I use is no hard racing the
few weeks before the big race and only race when it can be worked in to the
schedule appropriately, historically I’ve been known to fudge this rule a bit J
Now that the schedule is picked, adjusted for conflict dates
and spring races are entered you are about ready to rock. Do you have a time goal picked out? If so, you are a step ahead as you know what
your marathon pace will need to be. If
not, a good way to get a base estimate is to use the Jack Daniels VDOT website (http://runsmartproject.com/calculator/#modInt
) where you can enter a previous race (5K for example) and figure out some
estimated equivalents for longer races along with suggestions on pace
zones. These are all rough estimates but
this is a very good place to start. Most
plans will give you some instruction as to if your run is an easy pace,
marathon pace, tempo pace etc. but the exact pacing is left to you (unless you
picked a plan with an exact time goal which are available). VDOT makes this pretty easy, for an example I
entered in my test 5K from a couple weeks ago with a time of 18:10, based off that info I was given the pace
zones below which is pretty close to the paces I’ll be using for spring
training. Once paces are figured I'll enter those lastly into my calendar or create a key on the side to reference and my plan is set to go!!
So that’s about a wrap on my marathon training setup process, I'm curious to know what process other people use so please let me know or give me suggestions on improvement! I didn’t go over nutrition planning or cross training at all but I’ll dig into that more
once training begins, until next time happy running!
-Cory
Links to some of the
sites I went over are below…
WEEK
|
DATES
|
MONDAY
|
TUESDAY
|
WEDNESDAY
|
THURSDAY
|
FRIDAY
|
SATURDAY
|
SUNDAY
|
1
|
2/15-2/21
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
5 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
3 x hill
|
Rest
|
5 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
10
|
2
|
2/22-2/28
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
5 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
30 tempo
|
Rest
|
5 mile run
|
11
|
3
|
2/29-3/6
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
6 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
4 x 800
|
Rest
|
6 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
8
|
4
|
3/7-3/13
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
6 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
4 x hill
|
Rest
|
6 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
13
|
5
|
3/14-3/20
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
7 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
35 tempo
|
Rest
|
7 mile run
|
14
|
6
|
3/21-3/27
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
7 mile run
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
5 x 800
|
Rest
|
7 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
10
|
7
|
3/28-4/3
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
8 mile run
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
5 x hill
|
Rest
|
8 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
16
|
8
|
4/4-4/10
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
8 mile run
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
40 tempo
|
Rest
|
8 mile run
|
17
|
9
|
4/11-4/17
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
9 mile run
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
6 x 800
|
Rest
|
Rest
|
Test Half Marathon
|
10
|
4/18-4/24
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
9 mile run
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
6 x hill
|
Rest
|
9 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
19
|
11
|
4/25-5/1
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
10 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
45 tempo
|
Rest
|
10 mile run
|
20
|
12
|
5/2-5/8
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
6 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
7 x 800
|
Rest
|
6 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
12
|
13
|
5/9-5/15
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
10 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
7 x hill
|
Rest
|
10 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
22
|
14
|
5/16-5/22
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
6 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
45 tempo
|
Rest
|
6 mile run
|
12
|
15
|
5/23-5/29
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
10 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
8 x 800
|
Rest
|
10 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
20
|
16
|
5/30-6/5
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
8 mile run
|
5 miles easy / cross training
|
6 x hill
|
Rest
|
4 mile marathon pace + WU/CD
|
12
|
17
|
6/6-6/12
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
6 mile run
|
4 miles easy / cross training
|
30 tempo
|
Rest
|
4 mile run
|
8
|
18
|
6/13-6/19
|
3 miles easy / cross training
|
4 x 400
|
2 miles easy / cross training
|
Rest
|
2 mile run
|
Marathon
|
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