Marathon Training Plan Advice

[wawa]

I'm signed up for a December marathon (my first road marathon!) and I'm trying to figure out my training plan because I like to have all the time in the world to stare at calendars and make color coded things to print out and put on the fridge. 

I'm a party pace girl holding down the back of pack, but I'm not at all a beginner to running at this point.  I ran a trail marathon a few years ago, and was undertrained for the trail aspect so it was a loooooong rough day.  My current base is pretty solid,  and will be at a consistent 8-9-10-11 mile long run by mid-aug when I'll be 16ish weeks out from the marathon and it'll be time to start a formal plan.  Which all feels like I'm in a pretty decent position in terms of base.  I'm also really really really looking forward to NOT SUMMERTIME.  My goal is just to finish before the afterparty totally winds down without being a complete pile of goo.

I'd love to have a time based plan.  they're SO MUCH easier to work into my schedule. However....time based marathon plans seem hard to find, and all the ones I have seen so far assume I'm running a lot faster than I am actually am because they're having me peak well WELL under the 4+ hours it's going to take me to run 20ish miles.  So that seems like a non-starter. 
I'd also like to have a HR based plan, and ideally I want something I can just import to my watch so it can boss me around when I forget my workout by the time I leave my house.

So.  I can poke around on training peaks and see what I see, but I was curious if anybody had any specific recommendations or thoughts. 

[sadlebred]

wawa Good luck with your training! I can party pace it with the best of them on my ebike, so I can relate to that!

[campermom]

Awesome! I may be no help bc I don’t use time based or HR plans. I use Hal Higdon novice and I delete one column of short runs. I know myself and can’t run that frequency. To me the long runs are most important. I get out an excel and plug in dates and highlight issues like schedule conflicts and replace things and switch them around if needed. Good luck!

[scm1011]

Hmmm, I haven't come across any time-based plans and a quick google came up empty. I'm doing the exact same as campermom (Hal Higdon Novice with one less short run). I generally replace with a strength day but sometimes that doesn't work out either. For my 2nd marathon when I had a nursing infant I did Run Less, Run Faster plan which is fewer miles at higher intensity. It prepared me, but I prefer the lower intensity of HH.

I'm not an expert, but it seems like you could put together a time based plan just applying some basic math to a plan like HH. Not sure what your expect finish time is, but it seems like my plans always cap out timewise at about an hour less than my finish time. So my longest training run is usually around 3:30 and I finish around 4:20/4:25. Maybe work backwards from that, running longer each week?

[wawa]

Jul 18, 2024 8:08:45 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

Hmmm, I haven't come across any time-based plans and a quick google came up empty. I'm doing the exact same as campermom (Hal Higdon Novice with one less short run). I generally replace with a strength day but sometimes that doesn't work out either. For my 2nd marathon when I had a nursing infant I did Run Less, Run Faster plan which is fewer miles at higher intensity. It prepared me, but I prefer the lower intensity of HH.

I'm not an expert, but it seems like you could put together a time based plan just applying some basic math to a plan like HH. Not sure what your expect finish time is, but it seems like my plans always cap out timewise at about an hour less than my finish time. So my longest training run is usually around 3:30 and I finish around 4:20/4:25. Maybe work backwards from that, running longer each week?

yeah, that's my backup plan.  Hal Higdon has always been my go-to - ole trusty.  And I can certainly excel table it up.  

[theoriginalbean]

The FIRST Run Less, Run Faster plans are time-based with recommended paces for marathons up to 5h40m. I don't really run anymore but successfully followed their plan four times and hit my goal every time. If you can't find it online and want to send me a message I can snap it out of my (ancient, at this point) hardcopy book.

[Susie]

I'm on the Hal Higdon bandwagon, doing novice 1 for my first marathon.  So far I am running all 4 prescribed days/week, since I got used to that doing HH's half plans the last two cycles.  Since I am a newb to this distance I have no advice to offer, but welcome to the fall 2024 marathon party!

[wawa]

Jul 18, 2024 9:35:22 GMT -5 Susie said:

I'm on the Hal Higdon bandwagon, doing novice 1 for my first marathon.  So far I am running all 4 prescribed days/week, since I got used to that doing HH's half plans the last two cycles.  Since I am a newb to this distance I have no advice to offer, but welcome to the fall 2024 marathon party!

woohoo!  

[wawa]

Jul 18, 2024 9:29:20 GMT -5 theoriginalbean said:

The FIRST Run Less, Run Faster plans are time-based with recommended paces for marathons up to 5h40m. I don't really run anymore but successfully followed their plan four times and hit my goal every time. If you can't find it online and want to send me a message I can snap it out of my (ancient, at this point) hardcopy book.

I think i found a PDF of it. 
it looks intense!  that's a lot of speedier running.  Though honestly....it's probably not a bad fit. I like a punchy interval workout midweek, and my second weekday run is usually an inadvertant tempo run because the group I join is just a tick faster than me for their conversational pace.  But I am 10000% going to ignore the pace recs for the long runs because I run those with my BFF and she's slower than I am and we just go her pace.  (we're doing the race together too)  hmmm...

pretty sure I'm going to end up cobbling together a frankenplan in an excel sheet at the end of the day...

[theoriginalbean]

Jul 18, 2024 9:53:25 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 18, 2024 9:29:20 GMT -5 theoriginalbean said:

The FIRST Run Less, Run Faster plans are time-based with recommended paces for marathons up to 5h40m. I don't really run anymore but successfully followed their plan four times and hit my goal every time. If you can't find it online and want to send me a message I can snap it out of my (ancient, at this point) hardcopy book.

I think i found a PDF of it. 
it looks intense!  that's a lot of speedier running.  Though honestly....it's probably not a bad fit. I like a punchy interval workout midweek, and my second weekday run is usually an inadvertant tempo run because the group I join is just a tick faster than me for their conversational pace.  But I am 10000% going to ignore the pace recs for the long runs because I run those with my BFF and she's slower than I am and we just go her pace.  (we're doing the race together too)  hmmm...

pretty sure I'm going to end up cobbling together a frankenplan in an excel sheet at the end of the day...

They have a few different plans, I wonder if you found the advanced one. What's the top long run mileage on the one you found?

[wawa]

Jul 18, 2024 10:48:01 GMT -5 theoriginalbean said:

Jul 18, 2024 9:53:25 GMT -5 wawa said:

I think i found a PDF of it. 
it looks intense!  that's a lot of speedier running.  Though honestly....it's probably not a bad fit. I like a punchy interval workout midweek, and my second weekday run is usually an inadvertant tempo run because the group I join is just a tick faster than me for their conversational pace.  But I am 10000% going to ignore the pace recs for the long runs because I run those with my BFF and she's slower than I am and we just go her pace.  (we're doing the race together too)  hmmm...

pretty sure I'm going to end up cobbling together a frankenplan in an excel sheet at the end of the day...

They have a few different plans, I wonder if you found the advanced one. What's the top long run mileage on the one you found?

20 miles.  It's not a crazy amount of distance, it's just weird to see every pace be above "easy"
eta: but if you have a minute and can snap a pic of the plan in the book that'd be great!

[brooke77]

Track club babe on IG has training plans and the long runs are time based. I think you could loosely follow HH and cap your long run at 3 hours (I believe her plan goes from 45 min long runs to 3 hours).

[theoriginalbean]

Jul 18, 2024 14:00:17 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 18, 2024 10:48:01 GMT -5 theoriginalbean said:

They have a few different plans, I wonder if you found the advanced one. What's the top long run mileage on the one you found?

20 miles.  It's not a crazy amount of distance, it's just weird to see every pace be above "easy"
eta: but if you have a minute and can snap a pic of the plan in the book that'd be great!

Absolutely! What's your time so that I get the right pages?