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[Cubswin]

Who's done it before? Im starting an 18 week training program tuesday with hopes of running Miami January 29th. Been running 4-8 miles 4 times a week for 3 months now and am about to pick it up some. Any suggestions or words of encouragement from those who have done it before?


<font color="white">even money says there is a comment about needing vasoline and/or anti-chafing nipple tape </font>

Pick up a Jeff Galloway book, if you haven't already done so.

[Cubswin]

I was just planning on following Hal Higdon's 18 week novice program. Are his books really necessary? and if so, which one would be best?

[jakethebake]

You don't need to buy Galloway's books. The basics of his program are free on his website. And it's very good. Just google it.

[ChipWrecked]

Don't forget the nipple tape.

Certainly no one can argue with Hal, it’s just that I liked the way Jeff presents the material better.

As far as training schedules go, I believe Hal’s 18-week workouts (and many other authors) never go beyond a 20 mile long run- even his advanced schedules don’t. I like Jeff’s idea that a race is never the best time to run your longest distance.

Jeff’s training guides are about 32 weeks long, which looks something like this:

Weeks 1-15: Base Training- this is about equivalent to what you’ve been doing for the last 3 months, so you would skip this.

Next is hill training, which is about 3 or 4 weeks long. It basically is the same as basic training, but includes hill work on Sundays.

The remaining 14 or so weeks, would incorporate Interval Training on one Sunday, and long runs on the following Sunday. Your basic mileage (and recovery days) Monday through Saturday wouldn’t change, but your Sunday’s would look something like this:

1: 14-17 mile long run

2: speed work- 1 mile Interval Training

3: 16-20 mile run

4: 1 mile Interval Training, but more of it

The next four Sundays would be the same just increasing the speed work and raising the mileage up to 20-24 miles.

The next six Sundays you would replace the Interval Training with races, such as a 10k or something, and you would increase your long run to 26-30 miles (except for the last Sunday before the marathon, you would just do an easy mid-mileage run).

Whatever you decide to do, just make sure you put your stressful runs (i.e., long runs, intervals, hills, and races) on Sunday. Since marathons are on Sundays, your body will be accustomed to the stress on those days.

[ QUOTE ]
The basics of his program are free on his website.

[/ QUOTE ]
Great, I wish I knew that before I typed my above post [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
At any rate, it looks like he's changed his schedule a bit, and included some cross training, too.

Still, I think his books are great and are worth it, but if you just want the schedule, I guess that would work.

[runner4life7]

Get a friend to do it with you. Running with someone makes all the difference both in training and the marathon itself.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't forget the nipple tape.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or the vaseline!

[Cubswin]

I actually had someone training with me to run ottawa last year and he got a stress fracture during the 13 mile run... how dare him. needless to say, i didnt run ottawa. i think i can do it alone, i actually enjoy running alone as it lets me clear my mind of a lot of things... and i hate expending the extra energy need to try to talk...

cubs