Run Run Run

So what marathon are you training for? What's your goal for it?

It's the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, MA. I've never run a marathon before, so I guess finishing would be a conservative goal. Next... maybe a hair below 4hrs. Next again, and a reach at that, would be a 3:15:59 to qualify for Boston. So you're not able to see my Frankenstein picture? It's showing up on my computer... weird. I definitely need Burt's help!

Following a training plan or just logging miles?

I've been logging miles as of late, but I'm looking into an 18week Hal Higdon marathon training program. Any suggestions for training programs?

I'm not the person to ask. I went into my first (and only) marathon blind. Logged some miles. Not enough miles. My only goal was to finish, but next time I'd like to actually race it :)

I know there are some great plans out there. I would ask Carolyn in Colorado what she did for her first marathon--she ran a great first one last May.

If you hang around the blog long enough, particularly the Training Review Requests in the Discussion Forum, you'll pick up on the philosophy of the blog. I am not the most accomplished runner on the blog by a long shot, nor I am the expert in this philosophy, but I will tell you that the general philosophy is to run 6 days/week and build up to where you can do 10 miles/day with a longer run one day (usually the last day of the week). Just run at a pace that's easy enough that it doesn't compromise the next day's workout. Note that you don't start at 10 miles/day. You start at whatever mileage you can handle and SLOWLY build up to 10 miles/day.

After you're up to 10 miles/day then start doing tempo runs and other speedwork.

At least that's the blog (Sasha) philosophy as I understand it.

With that said, I myself do not run precisely 10 miles every day, though I average around that sometimes.

When I decided to do my first (and thus far only) marathon, the first thing I did was transition to running 6 days/week. I was running 4 days/week and I went up to 5 for about a month and then to 6. I did that for several months (4-5 I think) and then I did a training plan out of a book called "Run Faster." The book is by Brad Hudson. He has 3 or 4 training plans in the back of the book. You can select the one that has the mileage that you feel like you can handle. I did the second one. It peaked at about 62 miles/week.

Now I'm using a training plan from a book called "Advanced Marathoning" by Brad Hudson. It is a tougher training plan than the one I did before.

I don't know a lot about Hal Higdon, but I just took a quick look at his website. I think his novice programs are geared toward helping you finish a marathon, as opposed to actually running a marathon with a good time. His intermediate programs are a little better, but they're still lower mileage than what I did.

It looks to me like you've got good speed, but I don't know what kind of mileage you're used to. I suggest you just work on building mileage as much as you can until about 18 weeks before your marathon, and then find a marathon training plan that works for you at that point given the weekly mileage that you've attained.

I hope that helps.

Thanks so much! I appreciate your time during this hectic week!