Daniel's 18 week 2Q Marathon Program

Trim the first X number of weeks. Be sure that you are at or near peak weekly mileage before starting the plan. Those are some big workouts in the 2Q so you don't want to be trying to build up mileage at the same time your introduce the Q runs.

Daniels specifically calls out how to set up your plan with a graphic with the various phases laid out. Isn't his plan generally a 24 week buildup?

I don't have his book in front of me, but I think it would work out to 4 weeks in each phase. You'll want to verify with the text because I don't have it in front of me. He might have said something like 6/4/2/4 for each phase respectively but I can't remember.

I believe he would say Phase I is the most important, and if you are coming off of an injury I would definitely agree with that. Going into phase II depending on your injury you'll also want to be cautious, especially if in new mileage territory. If you haven't been running for a while due to the injury, you may want to extend phase I even further and focus on just finishing without worrying too much on the workouts, or find a later marathon to get a better buildup. Good luck!

I don't see any phases in the 2Q plan. There is a progression to the long runs though. The workouts are on the 3 week cycle and that is pretty easy to identify. Trimming the first week or two off the eighteen week plan is not a big deal. Don't over think it.

I don't have the 2nd edition of the book but from what I understand is that the plan A marathon training plan may have a phased approach starting with a VO2max block at the beginning. If that is the case, I'm not sure I would extend that phase at the sacrifice of the latter phases. If you do see phases to the 2Q plan, I'd be curious to know how to identify the phases.

For reference I did a 18 week build for this past spring (3:03) and a 14 week build for the fall by trimming the first 4weeks (2:57).

In the 2nd edition, he includes Figure 4.2 which lays out how to prioritize weeks if you cannot do an entire training plan. Does the 3rd edition not have a similar figure?

Still Improving wrote:

Trim the first X number of weeks. Be sure that you are at or near peak weekly mileage before starting the plan. Those are some big workouts in the 2Q so you don't want to be trying to build up mileage at the same time your introduce the Q runs.

+1

In fact you don’t really even need to think about them as weeks. It’s just a couple of workouts. Early in the schedule the workouts are either mostly T pace, mostly M pace, or I and R pace. So missing two weeks really is only missing one type of workout one time. No big deal. I am in week 14 right now. You should go back and look at the Road Racing and Training thread. Still Improving followed the plan with great results starting sometime in September.

Nope. I skimmed through the entire marathon training chapter in the 3rd edition and there is no figure on how to prioritize the weeks. As a matter of fact there are zero figures in this chapter. I could not find anything in the text either. I did find a Final 12 Week that is intended for people running big mileage. Everything else appears to be an 18 week plan with no advice on what to do if you need to abbreviate the plan. Makes me wonder what is in the 2nd edition.

The chart he is talking about is on page 110 in the 3rd Edition