Marathon Training Guide  

Marathon Training Guide

Week # 2

Steve:  veteran - 57 marathons

This weekly marathon guide is designed for marathon runners from the beginner to experienced levels.

Mike - marathon runner & author

Beginner Program:                     Week 2:

This week we will up the ante so to speak, roughly a 10% increment to 24 miles.  As mentioned several times in week one, stretching is meant to be one of the cornerstones of your training program.  Another cornerstone is getting plenty of rest; this will become self-evident as the mileage base and workload increase over the coming weeks.

Daily Training schedule

The beginner training schedules follow the hard day / easy day approach. if you have to modify this week's training for any reason, try to stick to this basic principle.

Day 1:

Let us begin with a 5 mile run at Easy pace. The pace will be run in your aerobic zone, which basically means that throughout the workout you will feel comfortable with little or no heavy breathing.

Day 2:

This day will be devoted to your first Tempo Run (6 miles). Tempo consists of a warm-up period at easy pace (1 mile) then pick a pace, say 8:30 min/mile for the middle 3 miles and finish easy for the last mile of the workout. Generally pick a pace under your marathon pace (30 seconds). The objective is to increase the length of the workout at pace over the duration of the training program. This will help you maintain your marathon pace over a longer period of time during the actual event.

Day 3:

Rest day. See Stretching and Cross-Training Sections.

Day 4:

Today is an Easy 5 miler on your favorite flat course.

Day 5:

Rest day. See other rest days.

Day 6:

This 8 mile run is devoted to LSD (Long SLOW Distance). See week one.

Day 7:

Rest day. Do not forget to stretch.
 

Marathon Guide's Training Tips:

• Get a running buddy. Nothing will get you out of the door better than having to meet another runner. It also makes a nice change from the solitary runs, and certainly helps those long run miles go by. Make sure though that your running partner runs at a similar pace to you.

• Schedule your long runs. Personally I prefer to do my weekly long run on a Saturday morning, but we know many people will choose a weekday evening like Wednesday. Pick whatever works for you. However, it’s always good to have a “fallback” day in case you have to miss your regular time.

Intermediate Program

  Week 2:

This is your second week of 29 miles and 5 days of running.  The base building period in this program is 4 weeks in duration and it is designed so you can think about things like getting enough rest and sort out the demands on your time from not only the running program, but work and family too.  Do not neglect the importance of the aforementioned.  Too much outside stress will definitely impact on your running goals.

Day 1:

Today you will start with a 6 mile tempo run (refer to Tempo run definition).

Day 2:

This is a rest day and you may want to do some easy cross-training like biking. Please do your stretching.

Day 3:

An easy 4 miler. No heavy breathing; there will be lots of time for that later.

Day 4:

This is another easy day, but a 5 miler. You will probably feel fresher today.

Day 5:

Rest and Stretch.

Day 6:

LSD of 10 miles (refer to long slow distance definition). Consider this your hard day due to the length of the run.

Day 7:

This is really a 4 mile recovery run to get some of the stiffness out of your body. Please take it easy and have a good light stretch afterwards.
 

• Running with a club? In our early running days, the local running club would go out on Wednesdays for a fairly hard 10 miles. We would all try and keep up with the front runners, even though their marathon times were 45 minutes faster than ours. This definitely did more harm than good both to our marathon training and our race times. Make sure you stick to your own pace goals when running with others…
• Keep motivated! You may find that your motivation level varies a lot at the start of marathon training for all kinds of reasons (health, stress, work commitments etc.). Reading running magazines or browsing the web for useful marathon articles will help to keep you going. Running with others is also a great motivator.

Experienced Program

Week 2:

This week will have the same mileage as week 1 but with a longer LSD run.  Remember that this program is difficult and it is your responsibility to be well rested and adequately prepared nutritionally.

Daily Training schedule

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