Adapting Pfitz Plan from 7 day cycle to 10/11 day cycles

Seems like a pretty good approach. Especially for an older runner who is injury prone. I'm imagining this would entail something like 3 quality sessions in a 10 day period? Thus allowing for some good rest/recovery.

Maybe it would look something like this:

1, off or super easy

2, general aerobic

3, VO2 max interval day

4, easy recovery

5, off

6, recovery w/ strides

7, long run with x miles @MP

8, recovery w/strides

9, general aerobic

10, threshold/tempo run

Just something of a guess based on the Pfitz principles in the plan. The one thing I've left out there is the mid week med-long run, which many say is pretty crucial to the plan. But I also chose to give you 2 days off in each cycle. Not sure how many pure off days you would be going for.

There was a really interesting long thread about # of recovery days Masters runner found best. A lot liked three days after a hard workout. but I also remember a small contingent writing about doing 2 moderately hard efforts in a row and then going into an easy rest phase. So there could be a lot of ways to mix the training.

I remember an interview a number of years back that 10 day cycles are ideal..... Was it Paula? Deena? Can't remember. One of the older female greats.

Anyway. That's all I have to contribute. Good luck.

A year ago, I prepared a 9-day plan based on Pfitzinger half-marathon schedules from his 1999 book. My fitness improved dramatically and quickly; my 5K went from 20 minutes in November to 18:57 in April. Also in April, I ran my target half marathon in 1:28, which was a big leap from a 3:25 marathon the previous October.

After the half marathon, I adapted Pfitzinger's more recent marathon schedules to a nine-day cycle. Injuries largely derailed that plan, but I still managed a 59:59 15K and a 3:07 marathon as a 58-year-old. Perhaps a 10-day cycle with an additional recovery day would have helped prevent the injuries.

Nine-day half-marathon schedule:

Day 1: Long run 12-20 miles as progression

Day2: Off or bike

Day 3: VO2max repeats

Day 4: Easy recovery run

Day 5: Secondary long run 9-13 miles as progression

Day 6: Off, easy recovery or bike

Day 7: Easy recovery with strides

Day 8: Lactate Threshold repeats or 4-5 miles

Day 9: Easy recovery or bike

In hindsight, I would add dedicated strength training and stretching, and maybe not have ramped up overall mileage so quickly. My training the previous year was limited to only two or three days running per week.

jewbacca wrote:

I remember an interview a number of years back that 10 day cycles are ideal..... Was it Paula? Deena? Can't remember. One of the older female greats.

Anyway. That's all I have to contribute. Good luck.

Not sure if this is the one, but I remember reading an interview with Molly Huddle's coach Ray Treacy and she did 9 day cycles that pretty much repeated hard, easy, easy. And Treacy would still sometimes bump a workout day back if he felt she wasn't fully recovered and ready to go. So they were 9 day cycles on paper, but often 10+ day cycles in practice.

keepgoing wrote:

jewbacca wrote:

I remember an interview a number of years back that 10 day cycles are ideal..... Was it Paula? Deena? Can't remember. One of the older female greats.

Anyway. That's all I have to contribute. Good luck.

Not sure if this is the one, but I remember reading an interview with Molly Huddle's coach Ray Treacy and she did 9 day cycles that pretty much repeated hard, easy, easy. And Treacy would still sometimes bump a workout day back if he felt she wasn't fully recovered and ready to go. So they were 9 day cycles on paper, but often 10+ day cycles in practice.

Could be, though the interview was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I think it was Deena.

Meb switched to 9-day cycles late in his career; he cited Paula Radcliffe as inspiration for the idea. He made this switch before winning Boston. He adjusted as necessary for fatigue and niggles, but when healthy the cycle was; long run/recovery day/same mileage as recovery day but usually quicker/long intervals/same 2-day thing as before/tempo run/same 2-day thing as before.

There will be a third edition of Advanced Marathoning coming out in 2019, with a chapter devoted to older marathoners. Part of it will be how to adapt the 7-day schedules to longer cycles (while acknowledging most people's schedules don't allow for Tuesday long runs and the like).

Thanks for the comments. I assume I would take the w/os in each week and instead of doing them over 7 days, do them over 10-11 with easy days inbetween. This would obviously lead to a longer training cycle : instead of 16-20 week plan it would be spread out over 25-27 weeks.

When I designed my plan, I kept the overall duration the same as the Pfitzinger model, opting to reduce the total number of long runs and medium-long runs. I really didn't want to stretch the macrocycle out more than 16 or 18 weeks.

But the number of VO2max and LT workouts was greater in my schedule because I did one of each every nine days, instead of alternating weeks. That may have been too aggressive, though, as my knees and achilles began complaining during the final week.

The model was the half-marathon plan from Pfitzinger-Douglas "Road Racing for the Serious Runner," 1999.

I think for my next plan, I will reduce the number of workouts, also, to maintain the overall duration at 16 or 18 weeks. I will

include most of the key workouts, and preserve the continuity/progression as best I can.

I took that approach when designing my most recent marathon plan, based on Pfitzinger's mid-mileage schedule in host most recent marathoning book. Sort of picking and choosing the key workouts to keep the schedule "on schedule." Will be interesting to see how he writes a 9- or 10-day plan in the upcoming edition.

I'm doing something similar to what you propose - every ten days I have three workouts, five mostly easy runs and two off days.

I'm 25+ weeks out from the Newport (OR) Marathon and just did my sixth workout today. My cycle is going to end up like this:

1- easy

2- intervals now, changing to threshold later

3- easy

4- easy

5- off

6- marathon pace run

7- easy

8- easy

9- long run

10- off

Currently, I'm on that schedule but instead of what you see above I'm doing 6x800 intervals, MP, 6x800 intervals, LR as I'm focusing on speed right now. So, every two of four runs are intervals right now.

My easy runs are now at 8 miles but I've just decided I'm going to progress them to 9 miles.

I'm 55 and my goal is to break 3:30. Last year I used the Hanson's Method (9 day cycle with about a week's worth of slack built in because I started it a week early) with one of their coaches but even after keeping fairly close to the plan I could only hold 3:30 pace through 14+ miles and just about every succeeding mile after that was slower and I finished with a 3:43. It was still a PR but I was disappointed. This year I'm going to do something more akin to Daniels.

I'll probably be posting my own questions on here in a few weeks to get a few thoughts from others as well. Feeling good at the moment as I'm doing similar workouts/times now to what I was doing in mid-February last year.

I'd caution you against stretching out the cycle to 25-27 weeks. I"m a masters runner who has followed Pfitz marathon programs a few times, including experimenting with 10 day cycles, but found myself unable to keep progressing past about the 20 week mark.

All in all, I found more success stretching the weeks out to 10 days by adding easy days, but keeping my heavy buildup/training phase to 18 weeks. I can't remember which weeks I eliminated - I know never followed the plan verbatim, anyways.

Jewbacca and keep going, you're both right. Paula at some point years ago and Molly recently have said that. Actually, I'm sure Treacy had a 9-day micro cycle but you're probably right that an extra day gets added when necessary. Radcliffe may have had an 8-day cycle of some sort.

Who posted about a thread where some masters agreed that they needed 3 easy between everything? I didn't see that but have come up with 3 easy about when I turned 50. Always 3 in between anything hard. When I'm out of base and into specific training the workouts all become hard and there are 4-5 easy between each. Even Canova has posted schedules where there are that many between very hard days and his guys are half my age. OK that's all I have.

Thanks for the insights.

And I just went searching for that master's thread that I remember being really interesting, but I can't find it. There are so many threads that are similar, and also interesting, but I can't find the specific one I was referring to. But I'm pretty sure I read it last spring, or possibly last fall.

Also, interesting thoughts about not stretching the training plan out past 20 weeks. I wonder if that means it might be better to do a strong base buildup, then do something like Pfitz's 12 week marathon build, but stretch it into 15 or 16 weeks?

If you keep the plan to 18-20 weeks total going on a 10 day cycle, how would you decide which work outs to eliminate?

Personally, I have no idea. All the workouts are in there because they're important. But that is why I suggested shifting to Pfitz's shorter plans, like the 12 week, and extending that. Then you are still able to hit every one of the key workouts, but you just spread them out. If you put all that into 10 day cycles, you should hit right around 17 weeks or so of training.