Daniels Marathon Training Questions

You are injury-prone. Don't even think about 100 MPW when you get injured on far less. I ran my first marathon maxing out at about 50 MPW, my second maxing at about 65 MPW, and my third maintaining 65-70 MPW for a long stretch (mostly on singles). You might not maximize your potential running fewer miles, but you might stay healthy. I was in much better shape at 70 MPW than 50 MPW, but each marathon I was training at the limit of what was appropriate for ME.

Try to get in a year of healthy running before doing a marathon, which it sounds like you're planning (assuming you meant early 2009)

If you keep it to 70 MPW or less, it can almost exclusively be singles. I'm a Pfitzinger believer, and "Advanced Marathoning" really only had one day of doubles a week for the 50-70 MPW plan.

Yes on some variety, even early on the comeback. Even if that means an easy 4 mile recovery run, and a moderate 6 mile training run, at least there will be some variation.

Good luck, be patient, and stay healthy!

This would be easier to answer if you used paragraphs.

That said, I "finished" (3:18) my first marathon going from nothing to 50 miles over 10 weeks. I averaged 41 miles during that time.

Coming back now from a long lay off... I bought a HR Monitor and went from gasping as I ran 20 min to getting in 3 runs a week in excess of 75 min. Still slow, but making the the come back eaiser.

Mileage depends on goals. Regardless of goals, you aren't going anywhere injured.

This would be easier to answer if you used paragraphs.

That said, I "finished" (3:18) my first marathon going from nothing to 50 miles over 10 weeks. I averaged 41 miles during that time.

Coming back now from a long lay off... I bought a HR Monitor and went from gasping as I ran 20 min to getting in 3 runs a week in excess of 75 min. Still slow, but making the the come back eaiser.

Mileage depends on goals. Regardless of goals, you aren't going anywhere injured.

I did mean early 2009, so it would be more than a year from now. Let's say if everything goes well and I don't get injured, the mileage build-up would look something like this for an example (I still don't know what marathon I will do and it all depends on what happens, so this is just an EXAMPLE):

Nov (2007) - 10, 12, 15, 18 (building each week to 20)

Dec - 20, 23, 25, 28

Jan (2008) - 30, 33, 35, 38

Feb - 40, 43, 45, 48

March - 50, 53, 55, 58

April - 60, 63, 65, 68

May - 63, 65, 68, 70

June - 65, 68, 70, 70

July - 70, 70, 70, 73

Aug - 75, 77, 80, 80

Sept - 70, 90, 90, 70

Nov - 100, 90, 80, 100

Dec - 90, 70, 100, 80

Jan (2009) - 70, 70, 60, 40 (Marathon week(?)

I'm not easily injured and it's still taken two years to get to 100mpw and even now, I don't stack those weeks back to back for very long.

Honestly, I know that your situation is incredibly frustrating, but I wouldn't plan for a marathon right now. Just plan to become a healthy runner and think about marathon training after 9 healthy months of conservative buildup.

As runners, we have a propensity to make lots of plans and schedules, but it makes a lot more sense to focus on shorter term goals. There are probably 10 important steps that you will have to take before running a marathon in 3:15. Let the marathon be your motivator, but focus your energy on the next step or you might trip.

Ok, maybe I'll go for 70-80 mpw at the most, but isn't intensity more harmful than mileage? I plan to build a solid base for most of the year before starting any speedwork. I figure the bigger my base, the stronger I'll be. It doesn't make since to me to run a 26.2 mile race while training only 40 mpw. If I can't make it past 40-50 mpw without getting injured, then I probably won't run a marathon any time soon. I'm being hypothetical.

Tedjo wrote: You are injury-prone. Don't even think about 100 MPW when you get injured on far less.

Maybe.

But injuries aren't always about the miles, however much we want to point to a number and say "that's my limit; as long as I stay under that I'll be safe."

I don't recall the details of tRg's various injuries, but in my own history the injuries have been far more about things like too many workouts too hard for my fitness, too much fast downhill running on pavement, wrong shoes, bad running surface (always running on the same side of a crowned road). And yeah, probably too many miles too soon in my very first year.

When I ramped (pretty rapidly, largely from adding short morning runs) from mid 50s to mid 80s but with longer, slower marathon type workouts, I stopped getting injured. And improved hugely, to a much better class of mediocre.

Dunno how relevant this is to tRg, maybe she's got a lower mileage body. Just saying, the miles ain't always the main factor. Sometimes it's how you run 'em, sometimes it's how you recover, sometimes it's whether you have the experience to know a budding injury from just another harmless running ache and/or the restraint to back off the moment you recognize it.

And definitely, if you're more willing to listen to page 87 which says you gotta run N miles this week including such-and-such an interval workout today, than to your own nagging hamstring, you're stacking the odds in favor of injury.

tRg, do you have a handle on why you've gotten hurt repeatedly? Do less of that and more of the other thing!

And doubles are the wonderdrug. They're like singles but better. That's why they're called doubles. They're an upgrade.

Ok, fair enough. I guess what I was trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with your plan other than the fact that it is long term. I think it looks reasonable, especially if you cut out those couple of monster weeks. The only problem is that you can't really know what to expect when you're starting over after an injury and long layoff, so you've gotta be careful and not be married to the plan.

Also, in my limited experience, most running injuries do appear in response to speedwork, but often a runner has increased his or her susceptibility to injury through high volume and the speedwork is what pushes him or her over the edge. If you're building up from scratch to a pretty high volume, the added speedwork during your special prep phase might be too much.

Just remember that it's much better to take a couple of down weeks and then continue your buildup than it is to stick to your plan and get another stress fracture.

dear, don't get stuck on the miles per week. a very wise man and damn good marathon runner i once dated (now a great SD therapist who I hope is ok in the fires!) said that I could probably get by on 60 mpw and still run very well. it just depends on what your body can handle. Yeah, i had a ton of stress fracs in my early days. I did a half a couple of years ago and pushed my old bones up over 60 and bingo, there goes a metatarsal. I think for a lot of women, getting some quality in is more important than lots of junk miles. we are hard wired for the endurance bit. get your long run, your tempo run, your interval day with recovery in between. think of 10 rather than 7 day cycles. eat lots of salmon and blue berries. good luck!

Hi Runamook. How do you organise your 10 day cycles? They're something I've been considering for my buildup to my next marathon.

Cheers

The Monk

Looks like you have been getting some great advice. An additional thing you might want to consider is something Frank Shorter told me last century three weeks training one one rest week (doesn't mean taking it off ,just means reduce your intensity and duration). If you have been injury prone you might want to consider one day hard to two and maybe three days easy this is what Haikkola did with Viren. Dellinger and Bowerman even advocated alternating easy/hard weeks with one week increased mileage , one week reduced in order to produce optimal regeneration/recovery of tissue.

I agree give your self minimally one year to prepare for a marathon. Don't get caught up in the mileage, focus on consistency. All the best in your endeavors and happy trails and trials!

I've heard that before and I think it's a good idea. As far as things that have contributed to my past injuries...practically everything you can think of. I've had a tibial stress fracture that I ran on for about 3 years (at least that's how long it hurt), caused by poor nutrition (eating disorder), low bone density, jumping up in mileage too quickly, overtraining, bad shoes, running on nothing but concrete, etc. After that "healed," I started workouts way too soon and my first week back I ran probably 30-40 miles. So that became a chronic tibial stress reaction for the next 2 years. Basically, the more I ran, then more my shin hurt. It wasn't healing properly. So I would take time off, get orthotics, slowly get back, then it started hurting again. I went through that cycle several times until this summer when I ditched my (third pair) custom orthotics and trainers (Mizuno Wave Rider) and ran in racing flats (Mizuno Idaten). My shin finally stopped hurting! I transitioned too soon though and developed achilles tendinitis. I took 2 weeks off, got a new pair of flats, and put a gel pad in the heel to prevent achilles tendinitis. However, I think my raised heel put pressure on my forefoot (I'm also a forefoot/midfoot striker). The shoes I wore (New Balance 205) were very thin in the forefoot, so I think that, along with weak bones, caused my metatarsal stress fracture.

I used the Daniels Running Formula for elite marathoners and pr'd in every distance from the 8k to marathon from 2005 to 2006, then I had a set back called LIFE.

If you truly follow the Daniels Running Formula your peak mileage weeks should be an amount of miles you should be able to do EVERY week. For me that number was apporoxametly 102 miles. So, if you honeslty feel like you could handle 100 miles EVERY week than 100 should be your peak mileage. If your body can't handle 100 miles a week than you should settle for a lesser peak week mileage. Everyone'e peak mileage number is different. Personally I would have loved to peak out at 115 miles, but I honestly knew to myself that I would not be able to handle 115 miles a week EVERY week, so I settled on 102, 103, maybe 104... as my peak weeks. But what the hell do I know--I'll tell you, I don't know much, but I totally felt exhilerated running pr after pr when I was using the Daniels Running Formula.

Brady Anderson wrote: your peak mileage weeks should be an amount of miles you should be able to do EVERY week.

I haven't heard it put that way before, but that rings true.

The way people tend to look at these schedules, I think, is to say "OK, so this marathon buildup starts at 60 miles. I can handle that. And sure it goes higher, but hey it's an official schedule, they wouldn't lead me astray! It's a gradual buildup, and it's only for 8 (,12 ,16) weeks. No problem, the first 6 weeks will have me ready for week 7 etc."

But if you're only really able to run about 60 miles of "base", you're probably fooling yourself if you think you can ramp up to 90 while also adding three hard workouts a week, week after week, in short order. In my experience and also watching other people, it's real easy to get greedy especially when it's just numbers on paper.

Thanks for that formulation.