Well I’ve went and done it. I’ve signed up for my first marathon. In this case it’s Manchester. According to their website it’s the UK’s flattest marathon. Should be perfect for my first Marathon then.
At time of writing I’ve not even done my first half marathon yet! So this will be exciting, especially since I don’t even know how well I’m going to run Glasgow Half Marathon.
There’s 30,000 people running this marathon so I think the atmosphere is going to be brilliant.
What Time am I Aiming For?
Definitely sub 4 hours, but realistically I want to aim for a sub 3.5 hour. My training block is going to build me up to 50 miles a week on average topping out with 60 miles, maybe even 70 if my times improve enough.
The Training Plan
Every training plan I’ve looked at tends to start at 16 weeks so not really suited to the timeline I’m looking for. So I’m going to start mines at 24 weeks and bastardise a plan together using the basics I know.
- Two hard workouts a week
- 1 Track based – probably interval based
- To increase my speed
- 1 Tempo based
- Speed again but also psychological benefits
- How should it feel when I’m pushing too hard
- What is my maximum effort etc.
- Speed again but also psychological benefits
- 1 Track based – probably interval based
- 80/20 rule on running
- 80% zone two or conversational page
- 20% actual race pace or faster
Week Workload Example
So for example if I’m wanting to hit a 50 mile week, that’s 80k for people like me who work in kilometres. (Btw this is a peak workload, at 10% increase each week I won’t expect to hit this until January 2024). The workload will be something like this…
| Day | Type | Distance (KM) | Distance (Mile) | Accumulator (KM) | Accumulator (MI) |
| Monday | Interval (400/200 x 12) | 11.2 | 6.96 | 11.2 | 6.96 |
| Tuesday | Easy Run | 7 | 4.35 | 18.2 | 11.31 |
| Wednesday | Easy Run | 10 | 6.21 | 28.2 | 17.52 |
| Thursday | Tempo Run (Progressive 4,3,2,1) | 14 | 8.70 | 42.2 | 26.22 |
| Friday | Rest | 0 | 0 | 42.2 | 42.2 |
| Saturday | Long Run | 34 | 21.17 | 76.2 | 47.35 |
| Sunday | Easy Run | 5 | 3.10 | 81.2 | 50.46 |
In this example above…
Easy Mileage – 79.8%
Hard Mileage – 20.2%
Wait when I added them up I got difference values!
Yes well the warm ups and cool downs on the tempo and interval sessions count towards my easy mileage.
Pacing
Race pace for a 3:30 marathon is basically 4:58 min/km (8 min/mile) so a bit slower than my current 5k pace (4:44 min/km, 7:36 min/mile) and I’m assuming my half marathon pace is close to it. Assuming I keep on at my current trajectory I should be able to improve this over what is basically half a year.
Also everyone has heard of the wall, I want to be prepared for it and know how to tackle it before it becomes an issue.
80/20 Rule
I picked this up from Reece but basically. Run slower to run faster. By adding more miles in at a slower pace I’m training my body for endurance but I’m also concentrating on form, foot placement, breathing. Most importantly I won’t get hurt, the track based and tempo based runs could cause me to injury myself and completely mess up all my training. Keep it slow, keep it groovy… nobody says this but it sounds good.
In the meantime…
I’m going shove a few other races in the in between as testers, park runs maybe Falkirk Half Marathon in November. I’m doing the Santa dash in Edinburgh with my friends. Usually I would go all out at these events, this time I want to use them to experiment with negative pacing, constant pacing, nutrition and hydration during races.
Races tend to get me all excited and I head out too fast so I need to learn to prepare for that.
