Pfitzinger 55 vs. 70 for spring marathon

If you are hoping for a 4 hour marathon, the 70 mpw schedule will take up a huge amount of time, considering how slow your easy run pace must be. Just saying.

While Pfitzinger and Humphrey do not state it clearly because they want to sell copies, the schedules they propose are targeted at runners able to run under 1 hour for 15K or about 3 for the marathon. For instance they define threshold as 15K to HM pace, that's what you are supposed to cover in a one hour race.

If you are slower, you will need to adapt the schedules. If you are a 4:00 wannabee marathoner you will not be able to do a 12K tempo in a heavy training week. It should be what you could race full out once rested.

An adaptation could be to replace every kilometre of threshold and interval pace by 3 to 4 minutes of running at the same intensity (e.g. convert 1600 m VO2max intervals to 1200 m, 1000 m to 600 or 800 m). Another one could be to go slower and go for HM to 30 km pace on the tempos and 10K pace for intervals. It can be helpfull if you lack endurance.

I would think if in the 4hour range you could take significant time off a marathon without workouts. Just running more miles and picking it up when feeling good.

What a great post.

Thanks very much for the insight, marathonenthusiast! I know I'm probably asking in the wrong forum, but does any one have suggestions for a more newbie-friendly plan? I am interested in something with a peak mileage at least 55, maybe higher. Based on recent race times I am in about 4:00 shape, but obviously I'd like to do whatever I can to improve with time.

You do not post your age, sex or weight or how long you have been running. Those pieces of information needs to be known to provide better information for you. Normally if you are running 45 plus miles a week, breaking 4 hours should be a cake walk, if you are in your prime years. Not so easy if you are retirement age.

I'm a female in my mid 20s. I've been running for 9 years. I ran track and xc in high school but I was never very fast (my 5k PR was 21 something). Since high school I've run casually - a couple half marathons each year. I probably never got above 35 mpw. This is the first year that I've taken my training more seriously as I have more free time. I don't think it should be difficult for me to break 4:00 but, I hopefully I have many years of running ahead of me and I'd like to improve as much as possible. My body held up pretty well to the mileage in this cycle and I know there are a lot of benefits that come with a higher volume. However, maybe this does not apply for a beginner such as myself. I don't want to put myself at serious risk of injury.

Thanks for any advice!

What is you 5K like now? Because 21 minutes is way, way better than 4 hours. Since you are young you should not have problems to get back quickly to something close to that. Breaking four hours should be relatively easy focusing on running volume (mostly slow, some moderate).

marathonenthousiast wrote:

What is you 5K like now? Because 21 minutes is way, way better than 4 hours. Since you are young you should not have problems to get back quickly to something close to that. Breaking four hours should be relatively easy focusing on running volume (mostly slow, some moderate).

I trained a 21 minute 5k woman to a 3:23 marathon, so yeah, 4 hours should be easy once you get your head in order.

My most recent 5k was 22:58. I obviously haven't been focusing on 5k training but I think I could get it down to the 21s in the foreseeable future.

What kind of volume would you suggest? Any specific plans/books to look at?

Ok, so this is much more helpful. I coached a female, early 30's to a 3:06 marathon at NYC and sub 36 10K on a hilly course way back in 1976 and she never ran over 40 miles per week. She was originally a field hockey player, so strong legs, plus she was athletic. Another female I coached ran 3:28 in NYC Marathon on about 30-32 miles per week, she had one week of 35. However, I also worked with another female, aged 42, who ran 45 miles per week could run 1:42 for half marathon and could not break 3:45 for the marathon.

I also worked with Toshi D'Elia who ran about 60 miles per week and did quite well. Most of her runs were between 7:30 and 7:45 with one track workout per week.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/sports/toshiko-delia-gritty-runner-dies-at-84.html

The 3:28 marathoner was not very athletic, but could run most of her distance runs at 8:00 or better (marathon pace). The 3:06 runner did most of her runs at 7:00-7:30 pace, including 1-2 11 mile runs at 7:00 pace per week. Easy days were around 7:30-7:45 pace. There was nothing too fancy with the workouts, just gradually building up the miles, picking up the pace for the runs and keeping an easy day-medium/hard day pattern, and usually one track workout per week.

RunFreely wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm finishing up a season of marathon training (running Marine Corps next weekend) and I'm starting to think about planning my next season. I have a marathon on the calendar in March, which gives me 20 weeks between marathons. I was thinking of doing 2 of weeks of recovery then starting the 18 week Pfitzinger 55 mpw. Alternatively, I could do about 8 weeks of base building and then start the 12 week Pfitzinger 70 mpw. I would like to slowly build my mileage but I don't know if this would be doing too much too soon. This season I have peaked at 53 mpw with an average weekly mileage of about 45. I should say that I am definitely a newbie (I aim to run somewhere in the 4:00 range next weekend).

.

Which program did you decide on?

I'm coming back from an injury so my weekly mileage has been relatively low (40mpw) so thinking of doing Pfitzingers 55 plan for a May marathon (it's a yearly event with friends). In a non-serious way our times matter (who buys breakfast etc.). I'm curious to do a marathon on low mileage but also don't want it to be a total suffer-fest and am happy to just do around 3:30 this year.

To anyone else - is 3:30 reasonable time using Pfitzingers 55? (If relevant, I have run 2:55.xx PB on around 80 miles a week but I do mostly easy miles).

Thank you.

what did you decide wrote:

To anyone else - is 3:30 reasonable time using Pfitzingers 55? (If relevant, I have run 2:55.xx PB on around 80 miles a week but I do mostly easy miles).

Earlier this year I wrote up a plan based on the Pfitzinger less-than-55 schedule. I made two main modifications: I adapted the 7-day weeks to a 9-day cycle, and I increased the length of the long runs.

As an older runner, the 9-day cycle gave me additional recovery days. And experience tells me that long runs are the single most important component, so I modeled them on the 55-70 plan.

The most difficult part of the plan were the marathon-pace portions of the long runs. I calculated approximate MP based on a recent 15K race, but I was unable to sustain it for more than a mile or two in the middle don't long runs; the plan calls for MP for up to 10 miles, as I recall.

Injuries derailed my plan to some degree. I averaged only about 40 mpw, reducing the length of the "medium long runs" and substituting biking for some easy runs. I kept the long runs, minus the MP sections but still faster than "easy pace."

On race day, I saw an 18-minute improvement from the previous year, averaging 7:09/mile in 2017 versus 7:52/mile in 2016.

If you can handle the 55 mpw plan as Pfitzinger writes it, and especially given your previous 2:55 marathon, I would think 8:00/mile pace should be very attainable.