Marathon training plan:

Here are the basic principles and a sketch of some details of my marathon training plan for the 2012 MCM.

Main goal: to finish in less than 3 hours. (A more specific goal time is TBD later)

Main strategies: 1) Run more, progressing toward around 80 miles per week.

                        2) Emphasize tempo runs and long runs incorporating tempo-pace running.

                        3) Race less: only 3 tune-up races in late Summer and Fall.

Rationale: As I explained in an earlier post, I have never trained properly for a marathon, and my current marathon PR (3:19) is much slower than a properly trained marathoner with my current PR's at shorter distances (5k 18:25, 10k 37:48) should be able to run. The simplest and most obvious way to improve marathon performance is just to run more. But in the past I have already emphasized regular (almost weekly) long runs (18-22 miles) heavily, so the remaining way to run more is to increase my weekly mileage. I have found that I am more susceptible to injury when I run less and less susceptible to injury when I run at least 50 miles per week, but I have never run more than 60 miles per week consistently. Several indicators suggest, however, that my body not only can handle running significantly more weekly miles, but also that it will respond positively to it after an initial period of adjustment. So let's try it. In 2012 I have gradually increased my easy runs to 8.5-9 miles and have noticed benefits in recovery, injury avoidance, and race performance. Two quality workouts in a marathon training week filled out by 9-mile easy runs and perhaps a medium-long run add up to around 80 miles per week without doing doubles. If my body can handle that volume, then it should help me substantially in the later miles of the marathon. But I'll settle for 70 or whatever if that's all my body can handle right now. There's no need to obsess over a specific number of weekly miles, as long as it's higher than in the past and reasonably consistent. A heavier training volume alone is not sufficient, though. Most of the sources I've read agree that tempo-pace running is the most important training focus, besides long runs and higher weekly mileage, for developing the endurance needed to run a marathon faster (approaching one's lactate threshold). So I will try to follow the key workouts in Jack Daniels' marathon training plan, which emphasize tempo-pace running heavily. As he recommends, I will do some races at marathon-pace along the way, but I also want to race a half-marathon in order to run one race all-out before the marathon.

Phases: 1) 10 weeks increasing mileage to around 80 miles per week (June 3 - August 11).

            2) 8 weeks emphasizing long tempo workouts (August 12 - October 6).

            3) 3 week taper (October 7 - October 27).

Phase 1: In this phase (which corresponds roughly to Daniels' phases 1 and 2) I will continue doing one 5k-pace interval session (or, rarely, a short race) per week, along with one long run and/or tempo run. These are stresses to which I am already accustomed. My focus will be on increasing volume (mostly at easy/long pace) while keeping these stresses mostly constant. The tempo runs will also need to become gradually more difficult in order to prepare me for phase 2, but the killer workouts will be reserved for phase 2 itself. If I have trouble adjusting to the increased volume, then the least important workouts, the 5k-pace intervals, are what I should sacrifice first. As in the next phase, I will take a recovery week about every 3 weeks.

Phase 2: In this phase (which corresponds roughly to Daniels' phases 3 and 4) all of my quality workouts (two per week) will be long-runs, tempo runs or long tempo workouts, or tune-up races. There will be no more 5k-pace intervals, and I will not do any shorter races. My focus will be long tempo runs and workouts, and the following three tune-up races:

Tune-up races: 1) Leesburg 20k, run at marathon-pace (August 19)

                        2) Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon, raced all-out (September 16)

                        3) Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon, run at marathon-pace (October 7)

As in phase 1, I will take a recovery week about every 3 weeks. Other weeks I'll try to maintain around 80 miles per week. If I can't keep up with Daniels' demanding workouts, then I should shorten those workouts before cutting overall weekly volume, because I tend to get injured when the percentage of faster miles that I run in a given week gets too high. I intend to begin keeping track not only of overall weekly miles run, but also of the number and percentage of miles run at each pace (easy/long, marathon, tempo, and 5k interval) in order to keep a close eye on this.

Phase 3: I've never tapered right for a marathon, and I want to hold off on planning this out until I get closer to it, in part in order to see how the rest of the training goes.

Of course I reserve the right to adjust any of this as I see fit, and flexibility is no doubt essential. But I can't train without a training plan, so here it is.