I write a lot about things in this blog, but i’ve received emails asking me how do I train for a marathon? I’ve completed 7 marathons and expect to complete 4 marathons this fall. Not an easy task. To be honest, I don’t follow any specific plan, I more or less just built my own training plan based on the best of all the others. Confused?

When I trained for my first marathon, I used Hal Higdons intermediate II training plan. Some might think that training for my first marathon on an intermediate plan is too much, but I came to that decision because I looked at the mileage I had already been running and thought that it fit the best, you have to do that too. I did well with it, and it does work, I got through the Steamtown marathon without any issues (well, except for the obvious fatigue and everything of running 26.2 miles), I actually did a 4:15, not too bad.

Since then, i’ve always followed the same type of marathon training method:

• I always take Fridays off
• Mondays are always my ‘recovery run’ or opt-off day
• Long run on the weekend
• Weekend long-pace run (half the distance of the long run)
• mid-week long run (generally the same distance as the weekend long-pace run

Probably the biggest issue I have in my training is that I don’t crosstrain, which probably hurts me, but I don’t have a gym membership or anything, and even when I did, I never used it. The above seems to work for me.

Each year since my first marathon, i’ve bumped the mileage up around 10% from the year before. last year, my max amount of miles per week was 62, this year it will be 68. Its all relative I guess, just get the miles in however you have to.

Most importantly is if you’re building your own training schedule, don’t ramp the mileage up too fast. Remember the motto to not increase the mileage more than 10% from week to week and TAKE RECOVERY WEEKS! This means that for every 2-3 hard weeks of increasing miles, step back and take a week thats less miles to let yourself heal.

Lastly, I only do a 2 week taper instead of the recommended 3 week taper. I find that the 3 week taper sets me too far away from the miles i’m used of running.

Remember, this is how I train, its not necessarily how you should, but it works for me. Good luck in your training, i expect to post my training schedule as soon as I get it pulled out of google-docs so you can see what i’ve done.