WELCOME!!
Welcome to the LetsRun.com Marathon Training Program. What you will find below are some general overview type of instructions as well as a link that will take you to your first two weeks of training.

STAY HEALTHY
We're excited to have you a part of our first official class (all 5 of you) and know that we are offering you a great time-proven program.  The training philosophies we are going to be offering you have worked wonders for our own running careers (as well as tons of chamions across the globe) and we know they will be successful for you as well AS LONG AS YOU STAY HEALTHY.

The marathon is a tricky beast.  Nearly anyone can finish a marathon (just ask Oprah Winfrey) but it's very difficult to run one fast - and by fast we mean by whatever your time goal may be. To run 26.2 miles fast, is a dicey proposition.  To do so, the key is to get your mileage up and build up your strength (a strong aerobic base) which requires a lot of training which cann lead to injury if not done in a smart manner.

Thus the key is to pay attention and listen to your body at all times.  Your number one goal has to be to stay healthy!!!! Now for anyone who has the obsessive traits that results in one being a successful runner, this isn't the easiest of goals to achieve as we know you're driven and like to work hard. Thus you need to try to remember that if you get injured it doesn't matter how great of shape we got you in at some point during your Marathon training as you won't be able to run a marathon well while injured.

Thus we are urging you to use common sense.  You should try to follow the plan we give you as close as possible but WHILE LISTENING TO CLUES FROM YOUR BODY.  That doesn't mean, slack off and take it easy for no reason. Not at all. The thing we love most about running is that it rewards hard work.  However, in actuality, it only really truly rewards hard work accomplished in a smart manner.

For example, last Fall, Robert got injured two weeks before his planned marathon. The fact he was in the best shape of his life and the favorite to win the Marine Corps Marathon didn't mean a thing as he didn't get to run it.

So all we're trying to say is work hard but don't be an idiot.  If you feel an injury coming on and are totally tired for an extended period of time, you've got to let us know this so we can have you back off. Before Robert's first marathon, he became the most irritibale person in the history of the world when he got over the 100 miles barrier for the first time in his life.  He was just absolutely exhausted.  Thanks to the intevention of Weldon and our coach, we had him back off take it easy for a week or two, he recovered, and went on to run the race he his most proud of during his entire running career.

GENERAL OVERVIEW OF PROGRAM
The first few weeks of the program are generally spent getting both your overall mileage and long runs up.  You then will settle into the main high mileage phase of the training program (which is a lot of work) before tapering down the final few weesk to get you relaxed and rested before the big day!!!  Your peak mileage week normally will come 6 weeks out before the race although we really don't taper too much until the final 3 weeks.

The standard mileage for a ** program is designed as follows but yours will vary to some degree.

**Insert table**

PROGRAM COMPONENTS
HIGH MILEAGE:
Alternating Weeks of High/Low Mileage:
Ever week alternates from low to high mileage. Instead of running the same every week, it's better to run higher one week and lower the next because this is a great way to allow your body to adapt to gradually increasing overall mileage over time.  Think of the Stress/Recovery model everyone knows about in weightlifting.  In running, just as in weightlifting, you don't want to go all out all the time as one actually only gets stronger on the rest days. On a micro level, each individual week is also based on the Stress/Recovery model as we generally schedule only three "workouts" per week so there is always at least one day of recovery before a "hard" day.

A typical week will vary depending on whether it's a high or low week. A high week will generally have ** whereas a low week will generally have ***.

"EASY DAYS"
In terms of average overall pace, we are not going to provide any guidelines except for the following - RUN RELAXED AND LISTEN TO YOUR BODY.  The primary purpose of a normal non-workout day is to give you time on your feet running and to allow you to recover and get ready to do a "hard" workout in another day or two.  We like to call these "EASY" days even though though they aren't all that easy (Weldon's standard easy day consists of a run of 5-7 miles in the morning and 12-13 in the evening).  The point of calling them an "EASY" day versus normal or average day is to force you to realize that the point is to run them at a relaxed enough pace that you recover from the previous days workout or for the upcoming workout.  The "talk-test" often mentioned in running magazines (can you talk while running?) is a decent measure to go by.   

The pace of your easy days should vary day by day.  If you are especially tired or are having a hard time adapting to the mileage, you should go slower. If you are feeling great, it's o.k. to go a little faster every now and then.  However, you need to remember that your #1 goal should be to get your body to be able to adapt to the higher mileage levels prescribed in this program. For the marathon, strength is more important than speed.

(In actuality, high mileage and aerobic fitness are the key ingredient to running at any success and many of you may find that your times at shorter distances improve while training for the marathon.  Weldon dropped his 10k p.r. by an amazing 1:22 (from 29:49 to 28:27) when training for the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials. However, don't be concerned if this isn't the case for you as many people may be a little tired from all the mileage).

Each and every person adapts to mileage levels differently but it's better to slow down a little so you can hit the mileage goals than to try to be a hero and run fast every day. What will result if one runs too hard every day is overtraining and a disasterous performance in the marathon.  If given the choice of running too fast or too slow, it is good policy to run a little too slow than too fast day after day. This is paticularly true during periods of very high mileage or sudden increases in mileage.

To make our point stick, please realize that we've always said that people can run as much mileage as they want as long as they do it slow enough.  What are we crazy? No, think about it: Could you walk for 8 hours each day? Yes, you could. It would be boring as hell but you could do it. That would be roughly 25 miles a day.

Now your coaches Weldon and Robert are famous for running extremely slow for so-called "elites" on their easy days.  There pace will vary anywhere from 6:30 - 8:00 minutes per mile with most of it coming right around 7:00 minutes per mile (Don't try to copy them, we just thought you'd like to know what we are talking about).  There's a fine line between being lazy (running slow as you're unmotivated) and being smart (running by listening to your body) but experience has shown us that for most runners (and definitely for those willing to shell out $200 plus bucks for a training program) that lack of motivation isn't a big concern - a bigger concern is super motivation that turns into stupidity (i.e. the thinking that more and faster is necessarily better).  

Remember, when you finish your marathon, no one is going to give you a medal for how fast you ran your recovery days.  Or as the great Irish runner Ray Treacy once said (or was it his brother John?) when asked why he didn't run with anyone else while training, "It's hard to find good training partners, people around here run too fast on my easy days and run too slow on my hard days."

LONG RUN
The long run (along with getting the overall mileage up) is the single most important ingredient required for a successful marathon.  Tons of people think that just because they ran a good half-marathon they can run a good marathon. Think again.  

Your body has to be specifically trained to run 26.2 miles.  Long runs are instrumental in this process. Under our plan, you basically go sort of long every week although we basically alternate a sort of long run with a "true long run" every other week much like we alternate the high and low weeks. In actuality, given the way the weeks are set up, high weeks actually have two longer days in them- the first day (Sunday) and last day (Saturday) with Saturday being the true "long run"- and low weeks no long runs in them although this is just a quirk of the 7 day long week. There is some sort of longer run every 6 or 8 days.

On your long runs, it's very important to practice taking fluids as the ability to successfully take fluids on the run is key to marathon success. We recommend taking 4-6 ounces of water or sports drink about every 3 miles if possible.  It can take a while to get used to so you've got to practice taking fluids.  

We recommend running a series of shorter loops so you can access the same fluids over and over. This can be boring (and we hate to do it ourselves) so alternatives are to pick routes where water fountains exist or to drive out and hide water bottles beforehand (which can take time). Practice drinking both sports drink and water as you'll likely want to take both during a race. If you can find out what type of sports drink your race offers, then we recommend practicing with that. If you have a huge support crew handing you your own bottles (which is technically illegal), we recommend diluting the sports drink with one-half sports drink, one-half water.

The key thing to remember about a long day is the following: A LONG DAY IS A HARD DAY. Don't go out and try to race these things or run them fast. The key is to run relaxed and get used to the distance.  The day before a long day is almost always a very easy recovery day. Robert loves to run these runs really really slowly to insure that he feels great on his long day.

On the long runs, we hope you start very slow for the first mile or two. The pace in the middle of a long run must be kept decent but even and very comfortable (about 65%-68% of the range from resting HR to max HR for those of you with HR). It is vital to never struggle until the DISTANCE itself becomes tough. The PACE should not be a problem, even for most of a marathon RACE!

Generally, we'll encourage you to pick up the pace at the end of your long runs (anywhere from 1 mile to the final 1/3rd of the run) BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE FEELING GOOD AND STRONG.  If you are feeling lousy, take it easy, get the distance in and don't kill yourself.

Don't worry.  A few times we will specifically ask you go pretty long and pretty fast.  These "marathon pace runs" are instrumental to a successful marathon as they mimick the conditions of the marathon - only you don't go as far - and will serve as a key element of your training program.

Races *** Half-Marathon Pace run or race??? John, - what do you think.

HIGH END AEROBIC RUNS
A high end run is a run that starts off slow but turns into a faster run.  Start off slower than your everyday pace and gradually pick it up after you get warmed up.  Keep gradually picking it up until you get into a good groove. Settle into this groove - which should be roughly the fastest pace that feels really good.

We like to call this COMFORTABLY HARD (for you heart-rate freaks, heart rates should hover around 80%-82% of maximum effort). The "groove" that most people settle into is normally close to or a little faster than one's marathon goal pace although it depends on one's goal time (If you have a really fast goal, you don't run faster than race pace on these runs).

For someone shooting for a 4 hr. marathon (9:10 per mile), most runners would normally settle into a groove somewhere between 8:00 and 8:40 per mile.

For someone shooting for a 3 hr. marathon (6:52 per mile), most runners would normally settle into a groove somewhere between 6:40 and 7:00 per mile.

For someone shooting for a 2:30 marathon (5:44 per mile), most runners would normally settle into a groove somewhere between 6:00 and 6:20 per mile.

DON'T BE A SLAVE TO THIS RECOMMENDATIONS. You must listen to your body. Find a medium/moderate speed that you where you know you are  getting a training effect.  This pace is one though that's not so fast that you are cashed. You should be able to do these type of runs several days in a row if we asked you to (although we won't).  

Remember, the number one priority has to build one's strength (mileage) before one's speed. Strength is more important than speed in the marathon.

SETS OF BUILDUPS
These are not all out sprints. You gradually pick up the pace continuously over the entire distance so by the end you're pretty much sprinting.  Then you jog an equal distance and then you repeat - thus pick it up for XX meters/jog for XX meters.

Buildups can range in distance anywhere from 100 to 200 meters each but should never last longer than 40 seconds long (so if you're not fast enough to do a 200 in 40 then stop at 40).

100 Meters Buildups
2 Sets of 5-6 x 100 Meters with 100 Meter Jog Between Each Rep/.5 to 1 Mile Jog Between Sets
For 100 meters buildups, each rep should start at a jog pace and smoothly accelerate so that only the final 20-25 meters involves any real speed. It's best to gradually tail off, as well, rather than coming to an abrupt stop.

For 100 meter buildups you could do them on the track as "ins and outs" which means pickit up for the straightaways on the track and jog the curves, but this is totally unnecessary and it's probably better to just do them ona football field (nice soft surface) or road or anywhere that you can run with the windeach time. Pick it up for 100 (running with the wind) then turnand around and jog back and do it over. It doesn't even have to be measured. Just pick it up for say 15-25 seconds and then jog for twice that time (30-50 seconds), then repeat, pick it up for 15-25 seconds, jog for 30-50 seconds, repeat, etc..  Or just eye ball what you think 100 meters is.

Each buildup within each set should be a little faster than the previous one and the second set should be a little faster overall than the first set.  On the first set, do the first 2 at an easy effort, then 2 at a medium effort and the and the last 2 prettyfast. The second set should be faster than the first set. Onthe second set you can do 1 easy, 2 medium, 3 pretty fast.

Again, don't worry about timing anything. This is just to keepyou in touch with your speed and feeling a little quick which is important for all races including the marathon.  For the marathon, it's pretty key as it gives one a way to maintain their quickness awithout being a tough workout as the tough workouts are geared towards building strength/aerobic base.

200 Meter Buildups
2 Sets of 4-6 x 200 Meters with 200 Meter Jog Between Each Rep/.5 to 1 Mmile Jog Between Sets
For 200 meter long buildups, start out a little quicker. Actually, these aren't really buildups as a continuous speed should be maintained throughout each 200. As a result, technically they are known as "cut-downs" as each rep should be faster than the previous one.

Start out at about 5K race pace and go roughly 1 second faster on each successive repetition with a 200 meter jog between each "cut-down" and a 1/2 to 1 mile jog between each set.  For a fast runner with a 15:15 5k pr, he or she (can you believe some women can run this fast) might do the 200s in 36-35-34-33-32-31 for the first set, with a 200 recovery jog after each rep, followed by a short break of about a mile jog, then a second set of 6 200s in 35-34-33-32-31-30.

But again, you don't need to be timing these and you don't have to do them on a track. You can just incorporate them in your normal run. It's up to you. Weldon hardly ever runs them on a track but Robert does it virtually every time. Robert tends to do them on a track as that way he doesn't have to think about how far 200 meters is but he makes a point of leaving his watch at home so he won't be tempted to time himself.

Tempo Run Definition

Other Words Of Advice
Surfaces
We recommend that you run on a soft surface (grass/trails) as much as possible for one simple reason - it's a great way to keep you healthy.  Running high mileage on trails don't beat up your legs like roads.  Weldon used to ice his knee every day after running for 6 years when he was training in the city but stopped this after moving out to Flagstaff, AZ and training on trails.

Now we know running on a soft surface isn't a realistic option for everyone (especially in the winter as it's dark when most people get off of work) but we just wanted to put it in in case you have the option.  

For the marathon, however, it's also important that you do run some on hard surfaces like the road as the entire 26.2 mile race is on a road. On your training outline, you'll see occasionally that we'll recommend you do a particular workout at least partly on the road. Again this is only a recommendation and we know it may not be truly feasible.

Conclusion
Well that's about it.  We are excited to be coaching you and hope that your dreams become reality.  We plan on contacting you very shortly but if you have a question that you want to ask us immediately, feel free to give us a call. Robert can be reached at 202-966-8198 or Weldon at 928-380-5093.

****** then give overview....

Your mileage might go like this assuming you stay injury free, which is key. (We'll drop down your mileage the first week since you've been going up since you restarted your training.)

Week	6/10	6/17	6/24	7/1	7/8	7/15	7/22	7/29	8/5
Mileage	30	45	33-36	50-55	37-42	55-60	45-48	66-70	50

We don't think these mileage totals are unreasonable. Most of the incoming 11th and 12th graders generally have no trouble getting up to about 70-75 in a high week and 60-ish in a low week if they've run in previous seasons. These mileage totals aren't set in stone. They will change from week to week as we get feedback from you. Be sure to listen to what your body is telling you. Will you be tired if you increase your mileage? Probably. But you should eventually feel stronger and very comfortable with the higher mileage, as long as you are not running too hard on a daily basis.

As stated above, generally we like to drop the mileage a little bit at the beginning of August before you go back to school and start working out with the team but that may not be possible for you since time is short.

Here's an idea of how a typical 60 mile week might be structured:

Day 1 - Short easy run on soft surfaces (plus flutter kicks and leg crossovers in swimming pool, if possible) - 5 Miles

Day 2 - Medium length run including sets of buildups/drills/buildups (add time trial of 600-1,200 meters at 90%-95% effort following last set of buildups every second or third week) OR high-end aerobic run instead of buildups/drills/buildups - 8-9 Miles Total. (by the end of the Summer to get a really high week, you could perhaps add a 25-30 min. A.M. jog)

Day 3 - Medium length easy run on mostly soft surfaces - 8-9 Miles.(by the end of the Summer to get a really high week, you could perhaps add a 25-30 min. A.M. jog)

Day 4 - Medium length run on road (or part of it on track) with progression to a high-end aerobic pace (about 4 buildups during "cool-down" following high-end portion) OR sets of buildups/drills/buildups as on Day 2 - 8-9 Miles Total (by the end of the Summer to get a really high week, you could perhaps add a 25-30 min. A.M. jog)

Day 5 - Medium length easy run on mostly soft surfaces - 8-9 Miles Total. (by the end of the Summer to get a really high week, you could perhaps add a 25-30 min. A.M. jog)

Day 6 - Short easy run on soft surfaces with 3-4 light to medium speed 20-25 secs. buildups near the end - 5 Miles

Day 7 - Long mostly easy run on grass/road/trails with the last 1-5 miles (depending on length of run and experience with program) gradually picked up to a high-end aerobic pace (fluids every 20-30 min.) - 15-18 miles.

David, this is just a rough outline of what we have envisioned for you. The information you provided shows us that you obviously have talent and dedication. We hope to provide you with the expertise you need to reach your goal of becoming All-State. We look forward to coaching you.

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