Starting a marathon programme early

ronanmac

I've been following and amending a half-marathon training programme since the beginning of the year, but with DCM beginning to loom in the distance, I'm thinking of starting on my marathon programme.

My problem is that the marathon programme is 16 weeks, which would have me starting on July 10. I'm considering starting this week, following the programme for the first seven weeks, and then starting from the start all over again on July 6. The longs runs between now and then would be 13, 15, 17, 20, 18, 20, 13, before starting again at 13.

Does this make sense or this there a risk of doing too much between now and July?

RayCun

You could just do a longer programme - an 18 week or 21 week programme?

I'm planning to do an 18 week programme, starting one week early to allow for unforeseen stuff. In the next few weeks I'll be following a schedule with the same shape - one LSR, one pace run, two recovery runs - and building up the miles, so that the first week of the actual marathon programme is a fall-back week.

TFBubendorfer

To start now makes a lot of sense. In fact, it would reduce your chances of getting injured once the "real" marathon training starts.

On the other hand, I would not "restart" the program after a few weeks. This would lead to the following few weeks being too easy for your adapted legs. I'd try and find a longer marathon training program instead. I have seen plenty of those over the years, lasting up to 24 weeks.

Krusty_Clown

I must confess I always start a marathon program a week early, to allow for holidays sickness or injury (talk about planning to fail!). But it has always worked out really well for me, affording me an extra recovery week if I need it, or managing unexpected circumstances, however, I have been sticking to 12 week plans for the last few marathons, so an extra week is slightly more valuable than over the course of an 18 week program.

If you're certain about your program, i would just build up to it, so you are already doing the required mileage before it starts. Maybe include some short intervals (e.g. 400s from a 10k program) which will help with the later speed-work. In fact why not follow most of a 10k program in the interval, and just run the long runs longer (10-13 miles).

shels4ever

ronanmac wrote: »

I've been following and amending a half-marathon training programme since the beginning of the year, but with DCM beginning to loom in the distance, I'm thinking of starting on my marathon programme.

My problem is that the marathon programme is 16 weeks, which would have me starting on July 10. I'm considering starting this week, following the programme for the first seven weeks, and then starting from the start all over again on July 6. The longs runs between now and then would be 13, 15, 17, 20, 18, 20, 13, before starting again at 13.

Does this make sense or this there a risk of doing too much between now and July?

Makes a lot of sense to start the program early but I wouldnt go to 20 miles so early in the program, I would set a max of maybe 2 hour long run until you get into your main program. This will give you a good base on which to go into the program. If you have 7 week until the program starts depending on the amount of miles you have been doing i'd so something like 13,14,15, 12,15,15,15 . Think you would get more benifit of this type of training then doing 20 mile runs prior to the start of the program. Key is to stay injury free.

shels4ever

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I must confess I always start a marathon program a week early, to allow for holidays sickness or injury (talk about planning to fail!). But it has always worked out really well for me, affording me an extra recovery week if I need it, or managing unexpected circumstances, however, I have been sticking to 12 week plans for the last few marathons, so an extra week is slightly more valuable than over the course of an 18 week program.

If you're certain about your program, i would just build up to it, so you are already doing the required mileage before it starts. Maybe include some short intervals (e.g. 400s from a 10k program) which will help with the later speed-work.

Well thats not totally true, when you say a 12 week plan thats really race specific training as your running all year round you really are doing 52 week plans
Wasnt there a thread a while ago that talked about that in regards to breaks people took after a marathon?

Krusty_Clown

shels4ever wrote: »

Well thats not totally true, when you say a 12 week plan thats really race specific training as your running all year round you really are doing 52 week plans
Wasnt there a thread a while ago that talked about that in regards to breaks people took after a marathon?

I am on a break. A 10k + hill-running holiday.

ronanmac

Thanks for the advice. I'm reluctant to change to another running programme, I've been different varieties of the FIRST three day week programme for the past two years and I find it suits me. What I might do is follow a hybrid of the advice given , and do long runs up to 15 miles, rather than going to 20 so early. Cheers...

ronanmac

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I must confess I always start a marathon program a week early, to allow for holidays sickness or injury (talk about planning to fail!).

I was thinking about this while out on today's run and it actually makes a lot of sense to give yourself the week's grace. Inevitably, something crops up during my marathon training and I end up trying to shoehorn missed runs into a shortened schedule.

As it happens, I'm planning to do Gaelforce at the end of August, and starting a week early would give me a taper week leading up to it.

smmoore79

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I must confess I always start a marathon program a week early, to allow for holidays sickness or injury (talk about planning to fail!). But it has always worked out really well for me, affording me an extra recovery week if I need it, or managing unexpected circumstances, however, I have been sticking to 12 week plans for the last few marathons, so an extra week is slightly more valuable than over the course of an 18 week program.

If you're certain about your program, i would just build up to it, so you are already doing the required mileage before it starts. Maybe include some short intervals (e.g. 400s from a 10k program) which will help with the later speed-work. In fact why not follow most of a 10k program in the interval, and just run the long runs longer (10-13 miles).

Great idea! I was gonna ask about an interim program before i start the marathon program in June. Think i'll follow the 10km progam with a longer LSR. Cheers Krusty!