10 Days Cycle

There are just too many cycling threads on here these days.

I tried a 10 day cycle about 10 years ago, but found an 8 day was easier for my brain to handle writing the training plan. My 8 day-er was two 4 day cycles: easy, speed,long,easy. The first 4 days was threshold and "short" long and the second 4 was fartlek (whatever fit that point of the cycle) and "long" long with the 8th day resting. It worked really well and allowed me to catch up if I had to miss a long run, speed session, etc.

My problem w/two 5 day cycles was too many "easy" days. I didn't know what to do with them. In retrospect, I should have made those days doubles...would've been a good way to gently increase the mileage.

Try a simple Hansons like approach for marathon training

3 day mini-cycle

Day 1: Hard Workout

Day 2: Easy Run

Day 3: Easy Run

Structure your hard workouts on this sequence:

Hard Workout # 1: Threshold repeats

Hard Workout # 2: Threshold repeats

Hard Workout # 3: Long Run

Hard Workout # 4: Speed Work

Hard Workout # 5: Threshold repeats

Hard Workout # 6: Long Run

Threshold repeats are repeats of 1.5 to 6 miles in length, totaling 8-12 miles of repeats done at marathon pace to 10 second per mile faster.

Speed Work is repeats of 1k to 1 mile in length, totaling 5-6 miles of repeats done at 8k to 10k race pace.

Long Runs are 18-22 miles with 3 miles at marathon race pace late in the run.

8 days would be better:

Easy Hard Easy Hard....

names wrote:

8 days would be better:

Easy Hard Easy Hard....

That's an interesting variation on the traditional Hard Easy pattern.