Any marathon training plan suggestions for after long break from training?

The Hansons method worked for me

What is your current mileage and comfortable pace on easy runs?

And how dedicated are you? Do you want to achieve the best in the given time period, or something in between fun and performance?

First off, thank you Dumoulin. Will look into the Hanson method.

Secondly, George Ilie, my current mileage is ~15 miles per week. I get in three or four ~3 mile runs during the week and one ~5 mile run on the weekend. I'm jogging at about 8 minutes per mile most of the time, but on my one 5 mile run I'll normally drop one hard sub-6 mile in there just so I have some "speed".

Now that I've signed up for a race and bought a plan ticket, I'll be reasonably dedicated for a recreational runner. That is to say I will consistently run 5 or more days a week, and if I put a workout or long run on my calendar it will get done. I have no delusions that I'll be coming close to my PRs from back when I could invest 2-3 hours per day into running as I have three little kids and a demanding job with significant travel now, but I'm not going to race just to finish either.

Does that help?

This sounds like a fun plan. Nothing like signing up for a race and booking a plane ticket to get you in shape.

If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't worry too much about a plan right now. I'd spend the next 3 to 3.5 months building up my mileage overall and on long runs. Throw in one tempo a week and some strides and/or hills, and you should be good to go.

At that point, jump into a 10k or half marathon (or both) and just see how it goes. From there, you'll have a better gauge on your fitness and what kind of miles you can handle. Then I would select my plan.

Though right now it wouldn't hurt to read a whole bunch of plans to see what you like. The Hansons book is good, as is Brad Hudson's Run Faster and Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning. There are many more, too.

Definitely keep this thread alive and let us know what you decide, and how it goes. Long-term goals are fun to follow for us old-timers.

You might think 15 miles/week is nothing but having that goes a long ways for having your connective tissue used to running. You are at a much lower risk of injury than someone who truly hasn't been running. I'd still give it a month or two of building up easy miles before going in to real training mode

I've used the Daniels Marathon Plan A (2nd edition of Daniels Runnjng Formula). It worked well for me (2:30 3 months before my 44th birthday).

It doesn't require a lot of quality days, so that would be good for your lifestyle. Usually there is one tempo day midweek and then one quality day on the weekend. That day varies between a long run, a long run with tempo mixed in, or a marathon paced run.

Confining the long run and tempo is really challenging the way he does it, but it gives you a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to hours dedicated to training.

Smoove wrote:

I've used the Daniels Marathon Plan A (2nd edition of Daniels Runnjng Formula). It worked well for me (2:30 3 months before my 44th birthday).

It doesn't require a lot of quality days, so that would be good for your lifestyle. Usually there is one tempo day midweek and then one quality day on the weekend. That day varies between a long run, a long run with tempo mixed in, or a marathon paced run.

Confining the long run and tempo is really challenging the way he does it, but it gives you a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to hours dedicated to training.

That's awesome smoove. I'll have to delve into that plan a little more.

And I didn't know your 2:30 marathon came at 44. Super cool. Getting back to things at 35 makes me feel like I have a little more time perhaps. Sub-3 is my first goal, but 2:30-something is definitely an out there dream time for me. With the potential to work on it for another decade, it seems a little more possible.

Hi all,

OP here. Bumping this back up after my first three weeks of "training". I've spent the past three weeks starting to build back to some reasonable mileage. First week was 20 miles, 2nd was 25, and this week I'll hit just over 30 if I do at least four miles tomorrow. All easy running at just under 8 minute pace, but with 3-5 pickups at closer to 6 minute pace mixed in twice per week when I'm feeling good. I'm also doing 4-6 striders after most runs, and 25-50 push-ups and sit-ups each day.

So far progress has been good. I've dropped 5 lbs (from ~175 to ~170) so far, which is the most concrete change I've noticed. I am feeling much better each run, and my easy run pace has been dropped unconsciously from just over 8 minutes to closer to 7:45. My plan is to keep this up (building base, trying to drop weight) until I'm up to 45 mile per week and/or under 165 pounds. Hopefully ~6 more weeks. After that I plan to go with Daniels program. It looks like the plan I'm most likely going to be able to stick with given the job and three young kids (and because I happen to have a copy of the book already!).

Will post again in a few weeks. Plan to start doing month 2-mile time trials from here on out to formally rack progress.

Have a great weekend

I'm currently following this plan:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070829121544/http://sport.monash.edu.au/assets/docs/chris-wardlaws-training-program.pdf

It slowly builds mileage up over the course of 26 weeks.

Good stuff. Nice to be able to get measurable short term positive feedback by way of your weight drop and your easy pace slowly dropping.

Stay healthy and keep updating.

Hi again,

OP back again with another update. Hopefully someone finds following this interesting as, at the very least, I find making these updates motivational.

Currently ten weeks into training. Have been averaging ~40 miles per week over the past 3 or 4 weeks. Long run is up to 10 miles. Still mostly doing easy runs with random pick-ups mixed in, but have added a regular 3-4 mile tempo type run once per week at 6:45 pace. Limiting factor right now are various aches and pains that seem to pop up when I try to push past my current mileage. I think it is connected to me still being too heavy for real training

As far as performance goes, I've done two 2 mile time trials. First was run on week 6 in 12:17. This was at 6000 ft on a relatively flat gravel bike path. Second was run this past Wednesday in 11:47 on the same course. If I use Daniel's VDOT tables this latest time trial corresponds to an 18:52 5K, so ~1 minute improvement over my baseline run of 19:55.

Big goal for the next month are to figure out how to lose another 5 lbs or so as after the initial weight loss I've plateaued at 170ish. For reference, I weighted ~155 lbs when I ran my PR of just under 2:30 (in 6' 1"). Other than that I'm going to focus on increasing overall mileage, getting my long run up to 15+ miles, and adding some marathon paced miles to the end of my long runs.

Starting to feel that sub-3 hours is actually realistic if I can remain uninjured.

Awesome stuff. That 2 mile improvement is quite nice, and I imagine your tempo pace will continue to drop and get more comfortable.

The updates are fun. If you want, there is also a weekly thread that a bunch of us share our training in. It comes up every Sunday and it's called some thing like Road Racing Training Three Week of Nov XXX.

As for weight, that is a tough one. We're the same height an size, roughly. Wen I started getting back to things last spring I was in the mid 170s. I did not really try to lose weight, but I pretty easily got down to the mid 160s. Then over summer as I started getting more miles (mid 40s a week, mostly) with long runs 12+ and a tempo each week, the weight just started melting off. I'm sitting around 152 or 153 right now. I also kept lifting once or twice a week, and I actually think that helped me continue to lean out.

Good luck with the training, I look forward to hearing about your next bump in fitness.

Good, solid, steady progress. Keep it up.

The weight thing is a bigger deal to me than I used to believe. I am a touch over 5' 8" and when I ran my PRs in college, I was about 140. I never trained consistently after my first year of grad school, and when I got into my 30s, I gained weight topping out at a soft 182. I dieted and exercised a bit, got down to 155-160 and started racing again. Broke 16:00 after age 40 at about 150-155. Got a little more serious and dropped back down to the 145 range and was able to break 15:30 at age 43. Some of that was the cumulative effect of mileage and quality days over time, but I think a good amount of it was also dropping weight (and the weight loss probably made increased and continuous volume more manageable).

I use the myfitnesspal app to log all of my calories when I start putting weight back on. It helps tremendously (down to 148 from a high of 157 this summer after taking a few months off after surgery - I will drop down to 145 and then stick there, at this age (44) trying to stay at 140 is just too much effort).

I'm in the same boat on this.

But I haven't taken as long of a break. I was going to create a thread on this.

I haven't started training yet but am looking for an October 2017 marathon. I was in mid 15s shape in 2015 for 5k, 32:20 for 10k and handled 70-80 mpw after not running much since 2013.

I'm going to use this thread as a bit of a baseline.

I agree with others who say Hanson Method -

I am in essentially the same place as you. Ran 15:28 in August 2015, but took off the summer of 2016 because of an injury. Now I am training for Boston from the couch.

I've put together a 24 week training plan that caps out at 80 mpw. The plan is based on my plans for NYC 2014 and Chicago 2015, both of which were based on Daniels' Marathon Training Plan A from the 2nd edition of his book. Happy to share that plan with you if you are interested.

Smoove - I'd be interested in your plan. Also plan on running Boston after a 6 week layoff due to broken foot. Hope to be at 50 mpw by January but taking it slow. Mid 2:50s more realistic for me if training goes well and conditions are good. Expect max weekly mileage to be 60-70 but I can adjust your plan accordingly.

Email me at ymca_runner@gmail.com and I will send it to you.