Squires v. Beck v. Pfitzinger Marathon Plan

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17 years ago 12/28/2006 10:13am EST

I've raced to a 2:33 on a hilly St. Louis course with Pfitz 70+/wk plan. I ran 2:30 on a flat Grand Rapids course on Kevin Beck's 'eggs in one basket plan' I'm an old man and have been reading Squires' "Speed with Endurance". Squires' book is okay, but I'm intrigued by his key workouts. They are in many ways much more appealing to me than Pfitz's LT and VO2 sessions or Beck's mile and half mile repeats sessions. I've looked for ways to include hills in either Beck or Pfitz and it just didn't work (mind you, this is over the course of three years trying these plans on their face, and then with modifications).

Has anyone followed Squires' plan (say, bronze level) with what you deemed good results? If so, how did you find the sessions working with one another? Did you find you could follow the days as outlined, or did you end up juggling some workouts around?

Curious to hear any experience.

cheers

17 years ago 12/28/2006 10:24am EST

re: dotato

I am not familiar with Squires book. Could you give some examples of his workouts?

17 years ago 12/28/2006 10:32am EST

re: dotato

I have run quite successfully with Squires' SWEP program. Examples of his workouts are 2 x 2K, 3200m, 2 x 2k all at 8-10K Goal Pace. Other workouts include 4 x 1600 with 4.5' recovery. Plenty of hills (9 x 1'30" uphill) and long runs with surges (20M including pickups of 1', 1', 10', 2', 1' or other creations.

Great schedules in his book. I ran consistent 90M weeks for close to 3 months, running a personal bests (road) for 5 km - 8 km and winning a marathon en route on my training for Boston under Squires' program.

Speed With Endurance is the name of the book, I believe. Great information and much more challenging than the programs you mentioned, other than Daniels' Elite Marathon program and those hellacious LT/MP workouts. Only other uber-challenging book out there is Dellinger's Competitive Distance Runner and Canova's IAF manual.

17 years ago 12/28/2006 10:44am EST

re: Muger Cement

Muger Cement wrote:
Plenty of hills (9 x 1'30" uphill) and long runs with surges (20M including pickups of 1', 1', 10', 2', 1' or other creations.

Yeah, these are the specific workouts I had in mind. I'm more of a strength runner (consistent low 2:30 marathons, can't break 16 min 5k to save my life). And these are solid strength workouts. I actually ran best off Beck's plan, but like the variation of Squires.

MC, did you stick squarely to the plan or did you modify it at all?

erik

17 years ago 12/28/2006 11:42am EST

re: dotato

I guess my specific question is any idea why the 20-miler 11 days prior to the race? It seems odd, and I've not seen that prior.

17 years ago 12/28/2006 12:33pm EST

re: dotato

There are 11 days in between the last long run and the marathon race. At the lowest level, it calls for an easy 15 miler. At the other levels, it calls for an easy 20.

By that point in the program, an easy long run should be "ice cream".

17 years ago 01/02/2007 12:00pm EST

re: dotato

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