Hansons Method

Got home in 3:31 today.

Absolutely delighted with that.

Bit of a hairy final 10k when the sun decided to make an appearance but really felt strong for the majority.

Thanks, Sandwell.

I was confident from pretty early on that I’d get extremely close to 3:30.

I will definitely be using the plan for my next shot at a marathon.

But for now it’s time to relax and spend some time with the family!

While not strictly exel, the link below is very handy for plans. It has Hansons as well as a few others. It will adjust the schedule based on your marathon date. Hopefully it's of some help to you.

https://www.expl.space/plan

thanks for that!

I have the 2023 excel version from this forum. life saver. Was hoping someone updated it for 2024

Adding to an old thread, but another satisfied hansons customer here having just finished the advanced half marathon plan earlier this week. Just snuck under 1:33 – log here. Was probably a little apprehensive before starting this plan given some of the peak weeks had two 10 mile+ runs with speedwork during the week (which is a heavier midweek volume than any of the previous plans I’d done) but I did eventually get used to it. Having said that – if it wasn’t for the possibility to wfh a couple of days a week (my commute is about 1hr 40 mins), I wouldn’t have been realistically able to do the plan. I did my speedwork days at home on Mondays and Thursdays almost exclusively and the idea of getting up at 5.30 to head to Dublin and then trying to squeeze in an 80/85 min run when I got there would not have been a sustainable one for me personally. Toughest sessions in my mind were the “strength” workouts at 10 seconds quicker than target half marathon pace – the 2x3 mile and 3x2 mile sessions stood out to me as particularly hard looking back on it.

In terms of the cumulative fatigue concept that hansons works around, I think I felt it most in the final 6 weeks of the plan, a bit heavy legged on some runs (and of course knackered after some of the speed days) but it didn’t become overwhelming nor did I have any injury concerns. I’ve followed 80/20 running plans in the past and looking the hansons plan through this lens, the intensity split gets to around 75/25 or maybe a bit above that the peak weeks so while there was a step up, its not by a crazy amount. I will consider doing this plan again for a half, and whenever I commit to doing another marathon I will definitely have the hansons plan in mind.

Great to hear. I'll hopefully be back in shape to use the plan in the coming months. It's after a similar gap to you from the last time I successfully used it.