Help Me With The Last 3 Weeks of This Daniels Plan

Looks a bit complicated to me but WTF are you doing all those 3 mile runs for when training for a marathon?

I've been training hard myself though this week with those 0-3 mile runs. Total wk mileage zero

I ran the same plan in 2001 and ended up with a 3:24 (age 54). I also had a peak milage of 50 miles. My last 3 weeks were 35, 27 and 11 miles with a 7 mile race 2 weeks before my marathon. I suggest making the last 2 weeks easy ones. It's the earlier weeks that count. Good luck.

Looks a bit complicated to me but WTF are you doing all those 3 mile runs for when training for a marathon?

I've been training hard myself though this week with those 0-3 mile runs. Total wk mileage zero

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I agree about the 3 mile runs (I haven't done them yet), that's part of the reason I made this post. The problem is, he is calling for Week 16 be 35 miles and has 29 miles prescribed between the Q1 and Q2 workouts, leaving only 6 miles. The leftover miles are to be run at E pace, so I split them up into 2 runs of 3 mile each. I thought that would be better than running only 3 times that week, one 10, one 19 and one 6. I dunno.

The program seems to break down a bit at the end for people basing off a 50 mile max week because so much of your mileage gets eaten up by the Q1 and Q2 workouts.

Where is this schedule from? Must be the 2nd edition??

Because the 1st edition of D.R.F., Marathon Program A calls for the final 5 weeks to taper down as follows: 100%, 80%, 70%, 70%, 60%, then Race week.

It's also weird that in the first edition he says to limit the long run to no more than 30% of weekly volume, and ideally 25%.

Weird if he changed things that much between edition 1 & 2.

One thing to consider... if you are a 44.5 VDOT, be careful if that is based off a shorter race distance if you are peaking at 50mpw. I don't think you should expect an "equivalent performance" at the marathon distance off of that kind of mileage, unless there is some other reason to expect a 44.5VDOT performance at the marathon distance.

Yeah, it doesn't really work at 50mpw. I'd do the hard long one (with the 15 at MP) on the 29th (so it's 3 weeks out). And then on the Saturday 2 weeks out just do an easy 17. If you're doing 80+/week then the volume plus quality of that sort of workout isn't nearly as challenging. But at 50mpw max that's going to be a hard workout and you don't want to try and squeeze it in too close to the race.

Then trim some of extra easy miles off the end of the longer runs with tempo bits and sprinkle them on the other days. So that the miles are a bit more spread out.

..and off 50mpw I didn't get anywhere near my VDOT predicted marathon time.

At 35mpw my marathon VDOT was 14 lower than my 5k VDOT.

At 70mpw my marathon VDOT was 6 lower than my 5k VDOT

(yes, I suck at long stuff)

Whatever you do, during the taper, keep intensity up and drop mileage ( easy runs), Keep the workouts and take days off if you need. Watch your diet, it easy to gain some weight during taper. It's too late to gain fitness at this point, just maintain what you have and heal up.

rising VDOTs wrote:

Where is this schedule from? Must be the 2nd edition??

Because the 1st edition of D.R.F., Marathon Program A calls for the final 5 weeks to taper down as follows: 100%, 80%, 70%, 70%, 60%, then Race week.

It's also weird that in the first edition he says to limit the long run to no more than 30% of weekly volume, and ideally 25%.

Weird if he changed things that much between edition 1 & 2.

One thing to consider... if you are a 44.5 VDOT, be careful if that is based off a shorter race distance if you are peaking at 50mpw. I don't think you should expect an "equivalent performance" at the marathon distance off of that kind of mileage, unless there is some other reason to expect a 44.5VDOT performance at the marathon distance.

Thanks for all the help guys, I appreciate it.

You are actually right on both those points, even though this is the second edition. I listed the last three weeks of my program as 35 miles, 30 miles and race week based off a 50 mile max week. Your percentages equal the same - 70%, 60% and race week.

At the end of the program is a basic "long run at E pace that is 22 miles or 2.5 hours, whichever is less." This is sandwiched in between 16 and 20 mile runs with 13 miles at race pace.

He starts out the program saying that the long longs are not to be more than 25% to 30% of total mileage, but that obviously has to change at some point if your max is 50 mpw. Otherwise, you would never end up doing a run longer than 15 miles. So he calls for this 16-20 mile runs with 13-15 miles done at race pace (which I have done).

Also, I am faster than a 44.5 vdot at the shorter distances.

Someone managed to Ginsu up the schedule badly during translation. I don't know if you copied it off someones web-site or what, but it's not correct. At least from my 2nd edition book.

1. This schedule is designed for running 7 days a week. Personally I feel 60 mpw is the bare minimum.

No he is not. That is a Q1(Quality 1 or first) workout to be done on Sunday at the beginning of the week which puts it 3 weeks out. Do not do it 2 weeks out.

Final week is listed by time running; if your not running enough mileage it may work out to be longer then previous weeks. But it shouldn't be.

All easy long runs are listed as xx miles or 2.5 hours - which ever is less. This works out to be ~18 miles for me but only 16 miles for you.

Tuesday - Q2 should be done on Wed or Thurs and it is listed as 2 x (20 min E)+(20 min T)+ 2 miles E.

Saturday - see above Q1 = first quality run of the week which puts it 3 weeks out.

These Q1-Q2 runs are swapped:

Q1= 2 miles E + 2 x (10-15 min T) + 30-45 min E - Thus you can make this a bit shorter than you have listed. Run this at the beginning of the week.

Q2 is the run you have listed as Q1 and is listed as: 2 x (40 min E)+(20 min T)+ 2 miles E.But here is the kicker; Daniels was questioned here about this one and suggested it was a misprint (one of many in my book) and to replace it with 3 x 2 miles T + 2 miles E. Which is still pretty stout so I use 3 x 12 min T pace (6 min for each mile listed) instead. You could use 5 min thus 3 x 10 min T if you like.

During my 1st marathon build-up I looked at that week and workout, shook my head and figured he knew what he was doing, and diligently ran that 17 mile (for me) workout. My race ok and I hit my goal but I did fade in the last few miles. Since then, after Daniels' comment here I always do 3 x 10-12 T instead.

Again - Final week is listed by time running; if your not running enough mileage it may work out to be longer then previous weeks. But it shouldn't be.

The 1200m is (1200m or 5 min T) which would get you closer to 1000m than 1200m

FWIW - I have 10 marathons under my belt using this schedule, sometimes exactly as listed and some with a few slight variations. Peak mileage has been 55-80 with most in the 65-70 range. All of my races have ranged from 3:21 (1st race) to 3:11.

Kevin52 wrote:

Someone managed to Ginsu up the schedule badly during translation. I don't know if you copied it off someones web-site or what, but it's not correct. At least from my 2nd edition book.

1. This schedule is designed . . . . .

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that, it helps a lot. I will make those changes to the Q1 and Q2 workouts. I will also trim down that final week.

So I understand that the plan works much better if you are running every day and 60 mpw and up. However, I obviously haven't been doing that. I did the plan based on a 50 mpw max and ran 5 days a week, which is more than I have ever done. I would do the Tempo workout on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the long run on Saturday.

Given what I have be doing, does anybody have any feedback on how many days a week I should run these last few weeks and if the total mileage seems correct for weeks 16 and 17?

If I make some adjustments to the Q1 and Q2 workouts, I can add some mileage to those 3 mile runs and maybe make them 5 miles or so.

Does that seem right?

Does switching from running 5 days a week to 4 days a week seem right?

Your welcome - I hope it helps some.

I would stick with 5 days - best to keep things moving. I find that with lower mileage the taper can be less. Just make sure easy is easy.

I often roll my strides into the end of each run. In the last 1-2 miles; I start a 30 sec. stride every 2 min, jogging slowly in between. My average pace over the mile stays about the same as the rest of the run. This will chop a little bit off your total mileage.

Also when I run lower peak mileage, I run more consistent weeks with less variation week to week. i.e. 50-60 mpw instead of 50-70 mpw.

Some corrections to my previous post:

The 2 x (40 min E)+(20 min T)+ 2 miles E is actually listed as (35-40 min E) and (15-20 min T). So your listing of 4 miles and 2 miles respectively would be correct for you. But I suspect you knew this already.