Marathon Training

Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays are recovery days. You should run these days at a normal pace, though if the day follows a particularly hard effort (e.g., a Sunday after a 20-miler), you might want to take it a bit easier.

Tuesdays are at the track, and the specific workouts will be set forth on another schedule. For now, you should be running in the regular group. As the mileage builds on these days, it will not necessarily be in the workout itself (i.e., you might warm up an extra mile and cool down an extra mile).

Thursdays are for a second longish run during the week. During these runs, you should try to run the middle miles at tempo pace (approximately 30 seconds faster than marathon pace).

Saturdays are for your long runs. Generally, run these at a pace starting approximately one minute per mile slower than your marathon pace. The entire run, however, does not have to go at the same pace. For example, if your goal is to run the marathon at 7:30 pace, you might start the run around 8:45 pace and as you get warmed up, gradually increase to 8:15 pace. Occasionally, however, you might choose run a few miles toward the end of the run at marathon pace to give you a feel for running goal pace after you are tired. The suggested mileage is in the table in parentheses. For example, on the Saturday with 14 weeks to go, you should run a total of 16 miles, and if you so choose, run the last three miles (i.e., miles 14-16) at marathon goal pace.