Marathon Training - Jack Daniels question

Why do you follow a plan if you don't want to follow what is in it?

For fff. sake

Why do you need to follow a mass produced book if you obviously know better, OP?Do you think Daniels just pulled the plan out of his a$$?

Want to be fast wrote:

I am training for my 3rd marathon using Jack Daniels(65-70mpw). This is my first time using Daniels training plan. I used Pfitz in the past.

My question is should I have a 'recovery' or 'reduced mileage' week built in during phases of training? Pfitz had these, but Jack Daniels doesn't.

When you have found a training plan, then stick to it, unless the last one sucked. The key word is consistency, and therefore you need to stick with the same plan.

Coach for a lot of kenyans and the two best norwegian runners Frank Evertsen says that "it's training you get do a lot of that'll make you good". So Jack Daniels' and the Pfitz' may have pretty different content, so it's not sure that chaning is the right move.

I think it is definitely valid to change a cookie cutter program if you need to; in case you think a recovery week is necessary you must do one; no matter which plan you use. If you get injured because of running too much than probably that would be the appropriate time to use profanity;)

Daniels plan is far from being a cookie cutter one. The Q days are hard.

OP knows shit about shit, I doubt he would know how to change the plan in anything remotely close to smart. I shall repeat: you are dumb as f*ck. clueless dummy yyummy fufufu.

YouAreDumbAsF*ck wrote:

Why do you follow a plan if you don't want to follow what is in it?

For fff. sake

This is correct. Either follow it, or don't.

The internet has created a world were everybody thinks they know everything because they can Google it. It gives them an arrogance that they know better. The truth is people do know a lot more (surface) information about many more things, but lack a real depth of understanding of most of what they think they know. Jack of all trades master of none. We live in a surface level world that masks extreme ignorance.

It's ok to trust the opinion of someone who has spent a great deal of time to study and actually know what they are talking about i.e., Jack Daniels. That's what you are suppose to do. The fact that you doubt him and then seek an answer on a message board is tragic.

It's been a while since I've read Daniels, but isn't the entire book about how to build and customize a training plan? The plans in the back are sample plans. Do you really think JD would advise that someone follow a plan in a book to the letter and not adapt it at all?

emaciated runner wrote:

It's been a while since I've read Daniels, but isn't the entire book about how to build and customize a training plan? The plans in the back are sample plans. Do you really think JD would advise that someone follow a plan in a book to the letter and not adapt it at all?

^This. Running Formula is a methodology book, not a method book.

As for OP's question, his marathon training plans suggest the volume for each week as fraction of the peak week. (0.6, 0.7, etc.) Of course, those are only "suggestions" but do you really think you need to reduce your volume by more than 20-30% in your cut-back weeks?

1. You should do what you feel like, not follow anything literally

2. The Daniels book DOES have cutback weeks. E.g. for weeks 11-16 relative to peak mileage: 90%, 70%, 100%, 90%, 80%, 100%, ...