Liz Trains for a Marathon - Heather, This is for you!

A couple of weeks ago, when I ran with the St Paul runners, Heather asked me about the training schedule I used for the marathon.  I told her a little bit about it but just wasn't emotionally prepared to write more until the marathon was over, don't ask me why, I have no idea.

Right now I'm not emotionally prepared to write a race report but am completely ok with talking about training.  I believe Heather and the St Paul ladies use one of these plans, probably not the novice since they busted some pretty amazing times in the race.

I used this marathon training program.  I actually found it last year when I trained for Amsterdam.  I picked it because the site has a mileage build up program and says "you have to be able to do the mileage build up before you can start training for the marathon" so it wound up being a 40-week training program which was prefect for my first time.  I used the same program this year because Beth reminded me that even though I ran crazy miles last year I didn't get hurt.  (That's as good a reason as any to stay with the program I think.)

Since Heather said the St Paul girls seriously modified Hal's program, it's worth mentioning that I modified this one a bit too.  In 2009 I modified some of the longer runs.  I think the first two 20-milers I made into 18 milers.  This year I did two twenty-milers and technically a 22-miler, although that was really a 20-miler too. I also moved around the step back weeks to coincide with, um, biology.  It's nice that once the step back weeks coincide with biology they do right up until the end.  I also played with the mileage because I only ran 4 days a week.  I usually did all of the miles and kept the long runs the same distance or a mile or two longer and added miles to the 4-6 mile runs to get the rest of my miles.  (Who am I kidding, towards the end I did 10-miles on the elliptical at least once a week to get the extra miles.)

The thing I noticed about this training program is I was literally doing 20-milers in July for an October Marathon.  At the time it seemed both hot and way too early on the training calendar.  (That first 20-miler was really hot.)  I was way more confident this year with three 20-milers under my belt than last year.

Another difference in training programs is this one has a notably long taper.  Sort of.  I did the final 22-miler a full month before the marathon.  The St Paul ladies did their big long a week after I did mine.  (I know because I was resting while they were running.)  I had a 14-miler two weeks before the marathon and a 10-mile fun run (it really was fun) the week before the race.  (I love the taper.)

Because I have OCD, I made a spreadsheet to keep track of the miles I needed each week, the long runs I needed to do each week, if I cross trained, and if I ran hills or ran routes that included a climb. (There's other colors that helped me keep track of things like races, and when I got new shoes.) Here's what this past year looked like. (Note that I ran over 1,000 miles this year. Wow!)