Daniels' Elite Marathon Plan: Has anyone done it and how have you fared?

Bump, interested as well.

Why is JD so revered? Find yourself a book by a real elite coach.

He's a Ph.D. scientist and has had a lot of success coaching.

He limits his ideas to his Ph.D thesis. That is not good.

It sounds like no one has actually tried it. I have the book and I will say that some of the workouts seem overly complex. I've also met someone a few months back that did follow it exactly for one of his marathon build-ups. He did PR, under 2:20, but said he was dead all the time. I guess it can work.

Anyone?? wrote:

It sounds like no one has actually tried it. I have the book and I will say that some of the workouts seem overly complex. I've also met someone a few months back that did follow it exactly for one of his marathon build-ups. He did PR, under 2:20, but said he was dead all the time. I guess it can work.

Well I'm glad to hear someone has had success with it. I've done well following his other training plans. I'm about to start the first week of the 18 week build up and feel a little overwhelmed. The first week has a 40 minute run at threshold and a long run that includes 6@MP/1@T/5@MP/1@T/1@MP. It's gonna be a looong 18 weeks!

Bump...?

I know he coached Peter Gilmore and Mag Boulet. He was there working with the Farm Team guys for a while. Pretty sure no one follows it exactly but does do som variance of it.

One needs to already be a sub 2:20 guy, if not faster, to take that plan on. I'm a mid 2:30's guy that runs high mileage and there's no way I could do it. Even with the minor adjustment of running T and M paces for 5 minutes instead of a full mile. It's called "Elite" for a reason. I like Daniels too, it's just a ridiculously difficult schedule to maintain for several months if you're not fully developed as a distance/marathon runner.

greenstone wrote:

One needs to already be a sub 2:20 guy, if not faster, to take that plan on. I'm a mid 2:30's guy that runs high mileage and there's no way I could do it. Even with the minor adjustment of running T and M paces for 5 minutes instead of a full mile. It's called "Elite" for a reason. I like Daniels too, it's just a ridiculously difficult schedule to maintain for several months if you're not fully developed as a distance/marathon runner.

I imagine that Daniels would tell you that it is a plan, but maybe not your plan. Look at that plan as an example application of the principles he lays out, and come up with a version that suits you.

greenstone wrote:

One needs to already be a sub 2:20 guy, if not faster, to take that plan on. I'm a mid 2:30's guy that runs high mileage and there's no way I could do it. Even with the minor adjustment of running T and M paces for 5 minutes instead of a full mile. It's called "Elite" for a reason. I like Daniels too, it's just a ridiculously difficult schedule to maintain for several months if you're not fully developed as a distance/marathon runner.

I've scaled it using 5 min for T/M pace and ~6 min for E pace and made it through the whole thing successfully. I was a 53 year old 3:15 guy at the time. Once scaled some of the workouts are damn near identical to "Plan A".

It's tough but doable and the results were good. I learned to back off my current vdot 2 notches for the first 4-6 weeks as the early weeks start out a bit harder than the "Plan A" schedule I used before.

I'm actually in the middle of it right now. I also throw in a workout from the 5K-15K section every other week.

And as poster said above, I am tired all the time right now! But besides being tired it's going well.

Is this from his regular Running Formula book or is this a separate book just for the marathon?

Regular Running Formula book. I have the second edition so that's what I'm following. He has sample training plans for most distances and in the marathon section he has a separate elite plan.