Hanson's Marathon Training Program

I got this book over winter break and devoured it.  I've been thinking about doing a marathon again, since the last 2 were not complete fails but I haven't been 100% either.

• The 2012 Air Force Marathon was after being sick the week before and really not recovered. 
•  The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon 7ish weeks later was better, but my IT band started screaming at mile 17. 
• 2013 was a disaster which I was just able to finish races but not train for anything.  
• So, I'm healthy and eager to knock at least one race out of the water.  Will this be the year? I'm hoping so since I signed up for the flying pig marathon in Cincinnati on May 4th.

Enter the Hanson's Marathon Method training plan. The idea behind their training plan is cumulative fatigue.  If your legs are tired, you won't push them and train at a pace that is too fast (and get injured in the process).

The first 5 weeks are the building stage.  All the runs are done at an Easy Pace.  In the beginning, this seemed WAY too slow, but I wanted to be true to the training plan so slowed down my pace from 8:30s to 9:40-10:30 pace.

At week 6, they add the 3 SOS workouts per week.  SOS means Something of Substance.

•  My Mondays were SPEED workouts (12x400m w/400 recoveries up to 4 x1200m). I did all except one on the treadmill.  Snow covered the track and I wanted a flat surface.  I did these at 7:33 pace.  These were done weeks 6-10. STRENGTH workouts replace speed workouts in weeks 11-17.  These are longer workouts example  6x 1 mile or 3x 2miles. These were on the track or in the neighborhoods with hills. In all the workouts ended up being around 10 miles.
• My Wednesday are TEMPO runs starting at 5 miles for 3 weeks, then 8 miles for 3 weeks, then 9 miles for 3 weeks, with 10 mile tempo runs for 3 weeks.  These all had 1 mile warm up and cool down for an additional 2 miles.  My tempo pace is 8:25-8:35.  I did these around the neighborhoods, on hilly places, in pouring rain and strong winds. 
• Saturdays are my LONG runs. I planned on doing these at Up and Running (my local running store) but cold/nasty weather made me try to wait out the weather and run later in the day.  Long runs started at 10 miles and go up to 16 miles. I've finished my 2nd 16 miler and only have one more to go.  My pace for these have been 9:18 pace.
• The other days are EASY runs which add mileage and help recovery and add to the general tiredness.

• Tuesday is my REST day.

The taper is only the last week and you are still 24 miles before the race.

I've just finished the plan, my race is in 2 days.  I can tell you that I was vigilant about using the plan and only missed 3 runs (on easy days) the entire 18 weeks.  I have run 3 marathons before and every time I've had a nagging injury or I've been sick.  I'm so impressed that I managed to do this whole plan without any injuries. 

Final stats:  682 miles in 18 weeks
Hours spent running: 106

Now, time to go spend sometime with the kiddos!