Addition of an Extra Quality Session to Daniels A Marathon Plan

dev123

Hi all,

I will be using Daniel's A plan from "Daniel's Running Formula" for training over the summer months.

For those not familiar with it, it specifies 2 quality sessions per week surrounded by easy paced miles.

Comparative training plans, such as P&D, incorporate 3 quality sessions per week IIRC.

The question is would it be suitable to add in an extra session to the Daniels plan? My thinking would be to rotate between intervals, hill reps and fartlek.

The reason I ask is that the plan is structured in such a way that interval paced running is the focus of the first phase, followed by tempo paced running in phase 2 to prepare for the toughest of the phases, phase 3 with phase 4 containing PMP miles and less strenuous tempo sessions in comparison to phase 3.

The plan is set up to peak for the marathon and I am wondering if adding in an extra weekly session impedes the objective of the plan i.e. peaking at the right time?

Thanks

cwgatling

He says you can add hills early in the program alright. I don't have the books in front of me but from what I can remember, the Daniels sessions are tougher.
I've been through Plan A twice and have never felt the need for a 3rd session per week. To be honest, 3 sessions per week for 18-24 weeks on high mileage could leave you in bits. You could always try it and back off if it's killing you. For the last phase, 2 per week is plenty I would think.

dev123

cwgatling wrote: »

He says you can add hills early in the program alright. I don't have the books in front of me but from what I can remember, the Daniels sessions are tougher.
I've been through Plan A twice and have never felt the need for a 3rd session per week. To be honest, 3 sessions per week for 18-24 weeks on high mileage could leave you in bits. You could always try it and back off if it's killing you. For the last phase, 2 per week is plenty I would think.

Thanks cwg. He does mention the addition of hills in the early phase and I think thats where I was coming from with including the extra session throughout the programme.

I've gone through the programme once myself and looking back I think you are right; the sessions are definintely not easy and the extra session may be too much of a risk.

He does mention that strides should be completed weekly as part of one of the easy sessions and that is something I didn't always do. Will include them for the summer programme.

Thanks again

Clearlier

How about 3 good sessions during the earlier phases and 2 high quality sessions during the last 8 - 10 weeks?

The distinction I'm making between good and high quality is that earlier in the build up you're base building and it's as much about pushing the volume of quality work whereas when you're getting near to the race you should be focusing more on the intensity.

cwgatling

Cool man, definitely going to include some hills myself too. The other thing is those easy days: if you're feeling good you can always hammer the last 3 or 4 of an easy day. I remember accidentally doing 10 @ MP on an easy day!

Yep, strides too to keep in touch with a bit of speed. It's a great plan.

Best of luck with it.

dev123

Clearlier wrote: »

How about 3 good sessions during the earlier phases and 2 high quality sessions during the last 8 - 10 weeks?

The distinction I'm making between good and high quality is that earlier in the build up you're base building and it's as much about pushing the volume of quality work whereas when you're getting near to the race you should be focusing more on the intensity.

Thanks Clearlier. I will give the 3 good sessions a go early in the plan. I will also look at maybe including double days into the plan to accomodate the 60 mile max weeks that I'm hoping to hit. I could do 4-5 miles at easy pace in the morning and then alternate betwee hill reps / fartlek session in the evenings.

Clearlier

Doubles are great for base building but if you can I'd suggest limiting the doubles during the marathon specific portion of your training. 60mpw is decent mileage but not massive to be doing doubles on when you're training to run a 26.2.

dev123

Clearlier wrote: »

Doubles are great for base building but if you can I'd suggest limiting the doubles during the marathon specific portion of your training. 60mpw is decent mileage but not massive to be doing doubles on when you're training to run a 26.2.

Again, IIRC, Daniel's suggests double days if you plan on going over 50 miles per week.

What would be the reasoning behind limiting double days?

If the 2 quality sessions are 12 miles with mixed tempo session included and a 18 mile LSR is it better to spilt an 8 mile run into two 4 mile runs to minimise injury, fatigue etc.?

Clearlier

I haven't got Daniels to hand but I'd venture a guess that doubles at 50mpw is at the base building stage. I'm pretty sure that P&D say only when >70mpw when marathon training (they say lower for those who are 5k/10k training).

It's not so much that I advise limiting double days, it's that I advise maximising your singles. The reason for that is that a 10 mile run is more marathon specific than a 6 and a 4. If you do 3 doubles and so 10 runs a week how many of those runs are lasting 90 mins+. Don't stress too much about it though. If you're getting in three longer runs a week then you'll probably have your endurance covered reasonably well. How you make up the rest of the miles isn't as important then and in the end more miles will be better than fewer.

Daltontobe - If you hammer the last few of an easy run you'll feel the effect on the days that you do sessions and you won't hit the intensity levels you should be aiming for which means that you'll recover quicker and finish more of the easy runs faster. Pretty soon you end up doing all miles at or around the same pace most of it being too quick. Easy runs easy, hard runs hard.

T runner

dev123 wrote: »

Hi all,

I will be using Daniel's A plan from "Daniel's Running Formula" for training over the summer months.

For those not familiar with it, it specifies 2 quality sessions per week surrounded by easy paced miles.

Comparative training plans, such as P&D, incorporate 3 quality sessions per week IIRC.

The question is would it be suitable to add in an extra session to the Daniels plan? My thinking would be to rotate between intervals, hill reps and fartlek.

The reason I ask is that the plan is structured in such a way that interval paced running is the focus of the first phase, followed by tempo paced running in phase 2 to prepare for the toughest of the phases, phase 3 with phase 4 containing PMP miles and less strenuous tempo sessions in comparison to phase 3.

The plan is set up to peak for the marathon and I am wondering if adding in an extra weekly session impedes the objective of the plan i.e. peaking at the right time?

Thanks

Dev, by your adding a 3rd session will you take away from the quality of the two sessions? Will your gains from the third session be greater than the loss of quality in the other two?

A huge factor in marathon running is aerobic capacity. Overall volume greatly influences this. Instead of adding a session maybe consider increasing overall volume instead. That means youll have to increase overall volume before you start the program. Could be worth an extra 5-8 mins right there.

tunguska

What kind of shape are you in Dev? I know you've completed plan A already and you sound like you wanna take it up a notch, do you think you could have a crack at the elite plan?

dev123

T runner wrote: »

Dev, by your adding a 3rd session will you take away from the quality of the two sessions? Will your gains from the third session be greater than the loss of quality in the other two?

A huge factor in marathon running is aerobic capacity. Overall volume greatly influences this. Instead of adding a session maybe consider increasing overall volume instead. That means youll have to increase overall volume before you start the program. Could be worth an extra 5-8 mins right there.

Good point. Daniels believes that 2 quality sessions per week is sufficient so why should I deviate from that?

I suppose the thinking would be that 3 sessions per week would provide quicker improvements, which is something I think we are all after.

It probably isn't fair to compare training programmes based on the number of quality sessions they contain. As cwg mentioned earlier the 2 sessions are tough enough as it is.

dev123

tunguska wrote: »

What kind of shape are you in Dev? I know you've completed plan A already and you sound like you wanna take it up a notch, do you think you could have a crack at the elite plan?

Hi tunguska. I would be nowhere near the Elite plan yet. I had a look at it once and my IT band started acting up!!!!

New to running in the last 18 months so happy to keep building and learn as I go. Speaking of learning, I'm just getting through "Brain Training for Runners" which I think you recommended a few weeks ago. Some interesting stuff in there. Will try put it to use over the next few months.

tunguska

dev123 wrote: »

Hi tunguska. I would be nowhere near the Elite plan yet. I had a look at it once and my IT band started acting up!!!!

New to running in the last 18 months so happy to keep building and learn as I go. Speaking of learning, I'm just getting through "Brain Training for Runners" which I think you recommended a few weeks ago. Some interesting stuff in there. Will try put it to use over the next few months.

Yeah matt fitzgerald based his programs on Daniels' running formula. I plan to implement a lot of his recommendations for my own marathon plan.
Why not jury rig plan A in accordance with what fitzgerald suggests?

dev123

tunguska wrote: »

dev123 wrote: »

Hi tunguska. I would be nowhere near the Elite plan yet. I had a look at it once and my IT band started acting up!!!!

New to running in the last 18 months so happy to keep building and learn as I go. Speaking of learning, I'm just getting through "Brain Training for Runners" which I think you recommended a few weeks ago. Some interesting stuff in there. Will try put it to use over the next few months.

Yeah matt fitzgerald based his programs on Daniels' running formula. I plan to implement a lot of his recommendations for my own marathon plan.
Why not jury rig plan A in accordance with what fitzgerald suggests?

I havnt gotten as far as fitzgeralds training plans yet but he does seem to have a similar concept to daniels vdot pace calculator. I think once I've finished "brain training" I will be in a better place to assess the daniels plan. It could easily be a case of "if it ain't broke ..." and sticking to daniels plan.
Thanks for the suggestion