"It is horrible, yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose
and an utterly exausted frame."
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - after observing Dorando Pietri collapse
three times in the last 100 meters of the 1908 Olympic Marathon.

A 21-week Marathon Training Program Author: Christoph F. Eick

The training schedule has been derived from talks with other runners, reading the Runner's World and Galloway's book, the writings of Bill Rodgers and Owen Anderson, and from personal needs, such the need to have a lot of rest days. If you have any comments, especially good/bad experiences with similar schedules, please send e-mail to:
ceick@aol.com

The training schedule that is listed and explained in the following incorporates the following ideas and beliefs:

• It has been designed for a runner that likes or needs a lot of rest days or who can only run 4-5 days per week, but who doesn't mind to have 2-3 longer or harder workouts per week.
• It is suitable for runners that want to run a marathon between 2:55 and 4:15. I, myself currently use it to train for running a 3:20 marathon.
• It follows the hard-easy approach; after a long or hard run, there will be a rest day or a short easy run.
• It stresses that being injured is the worst that can happen to a runner. Consequently, it does not contain much trackwork faster than 8K-pace, and recommends rest days after hard workouts.
• It has a lot of similarity with Galloway's marathon training program:
  • Long runs every other week; distance of long runs increases to marathon distance near the end of the training period.
  • Mile repeats at 20K-pace are used as the major speedwork routine in the last two months of training.
  • Not much stress is put on weekly mileage, which is quite low compared to other schedules.
  • It assumes that doing a significant number of intervals at slower pace is more productive than running fewer intervals at a faster pace.
• It is based on the idea that running too often too fast in training is counterproductive: "train slowly, race fast".
• It is based on the belief that very fast trackwork is not very beneficiary for races of 20K and longer. It recommends to consider races as a form of fast speedwork, instead.
• It assumes that long runs of 13+ miles should be done at a more leisurely pace (typically 30-70 seconds slower than marathon goal pace; 1min 20sec to 2 minutes slower than 10K-pace): most importantly, you exercise to be 2-3.5 hours on your feet.
• It is assumed that occasional runs of 7-13 miles at marathon pace are quite useful when preparing for a marathon. However, this is the only form of tempo run that the proposed training plan uses.
• It is based on the belief that hill running is highly beneficiary for improving running performance, in general. Consequently, hill running is done once a week in the first 8 weeks of training.
• It is also assumed that you ease into training sessions, running the first or the first two miles as slow as you like. Consequently, timed workouts such as 10 Miles at marathon pace, basically mean to run the first mile as slow as you like, and running the remaining miles at or near marathon pace.
• The schedule assumes that you ran 3-6 races prior to your marathon-race. The proposed schedule has to be adapted to incorporate your individual races; as a general rule, if you plan to run a race, cut or drop workouts in the week of the race worth: (race-distance+3) miles!

     
          BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE 21-WEEK TRAINING PROGRAM

Week 0: 11 Miles + Marathon
Week 1: 25 Miles
Week 2: 30 Miles 
Week 3-12: Phase III (weekly mileage of 40 miles with 3 easy weeks of 25
miles)
           a) long runs (18 miles to 25 miles) every 2 to 3 weeks
           b) 12x400@2M-pace(Walk200;4 min Rest after 6x400) 
              4-12x1M repeats at 20K-pace(1 min. rest, LT workout) 
           c) 2-3 5-13 Mile runs incl. 1 Run at or near Marathon Pace every

              other week
           d) races every 2-3 weeks that serve as fast speed-work
           e) easy runs to get the mileage up to 40 Miles         
Week 13-16: Phase II(weekly mileage 30-38 miles)
           a) long runs of 14-17 miles every other week
           b) 5-7x1200@8K-Pace(3min rest between repeats) every week
           c) 80-110 minutes on hilly course every week(incl. "easy"
intervals)
           d) easy runs 
Week 17-20: Phase I(weekly mileage 26-32 miles) 
           a) Long Runs of 10/11/12/13 Miles every week
           b) 70-90 minutes on hilly course every week
           c) easy runs

                  DETAILED TRAINING PLAN
Week Mo    Tu       We      Th      Fr       Sa        Su    Total Mileage
20   5M             1OM     5M              70minHill           28
19   5M             11M     5M              70minH              29
18   5M             12M     4M              80minH              30
17   5M             13M     4M              80minH              31
16   9M            5x1200   8M             100minH              32
15   80minH        6x1200   4M                15M               34
14   9M            6x1200   8M             100minH              33
13   80minH        7x1200   4M                17M               37
12   10M           12x400   4M      9M                 12M      41
11         9M       4x1M            7M        19M               41
10   3M            12x400   4M                6x1M      4M      26(easy)
 9   9M            6M@Mara          6M        21M               42
 8   4M             8x1M            3M      5K-race             25(easy)
 7   6M@Mara        9x1M            7M                 16M      40
 6         7M@Mara   6M             4M        23M               40
 5  12x400           6M     6M              5K-race             25(easy)
 4   7M            10x1M    4M      7M                11M@Mara  41
 3         9M               7M                25M               41
 2   3M    7M       5x1M            3M      12M@Mara            32
 1   6M             5x1M            5M        1OM               28
 0   6M            3M@Mara          2M                Marathon  11+Marathon

If you run a race, cut workouts in the week of the race by 
(race-distance+3) miles!