A glitch in the Matrix? No, just a new training plan

On the heels of my 10K summer adventure, it is time to start up a new marathon training plan. This will be #4 for me. More about the specific race I plan to run will be forthcoming. For now though, I have 12 weeks to train and prepare. As I look back over the results of my training and races this past year, I think one bit of knowledge I gained was that I was pushing myself too hard. For runners, that tends to reveal itself in the form of injuries like the soleus strain I've been recovering from after pushing for too much speed for the 10K.

As I started looking ahead to this new marathon cycle and in light of this knowledge about where I am physically, one of the decisions I made was to try a 10-day schedule instead of the normal 7-day (i.e. weekly) training plan. From my research, 10-day schedules can be effective because there is not such a push to cram so many different types of runs into a single week. The 10-day plans are also better for older runners who can no longer push as hard as younger runners. And yes, I am an older runner along with recovering from years of being overweight and out of shape.


With 12 weeks to train, this puts me at a little over 8 10-day cycles. For each 10 days, there are 3 "rest" days and 7 running days. The schedule is configured so that the running days are either 2 days back-to-back or a 3-day stretch. According to the plan I found (which I will note, 10-day cycles are hard to find), the rest days could be used for easy/recovery runs. Given that I want to try to back off things just a bit to try not to overtrain, I will use them as true rest days with no running.

About a week ago I had things penciled in a spreadsheet and looking at it, I just felt like it was going to be a rather boring plan and it seemed very repetitive with not much variation. The other issue I was about to struggle with was figuring out what paces to establish for the different runs.

This set me off on some more research in which I stumbled upon the Daniels' Running Formula. As I have discovered, Daniels is one of the pillars of the running and run training communities and it appears he is credited with the concept of "threshold" or "tempo" runs. The point of his book, which I read in one day over the weekend, is that every run should have a purpose. That really resonated with me. So I undertook to restructure my plan using his VDOT concepts as the guide to my training paces and then modified one of his marathon training plans.

According to Daniels weekly plan (the one I chose - he has several to chose from in the book), each week has 2 "quality" runs which involve runs like tempo runs, intervals or repetitions. The rest of the runs in a week are effectively easy paced runs meant to get you to your goal mileage for a week. To fit this into the 10-day cycle I'm using, I decided I would schedule 5 Q runs for every 2 cycles (20 days) versus what his plan calls for, 6 Q runs over 21 days. Daniels also has you base weekly mileage off a peak mileage. For this plan, I'm going for a peak of 60 miles, so most weeks are over 50 miles.

Daniels also recommends certain types of runs not exceed a certain amount of the weekly mileage. For example, tempo runs should not exceed 10% of the weekly total. Making sure I met (or at least go close) those limits took some modifications.

The final piece of the planning involved establishing the training paces to be used for each type of run. Daniels develops these rates based on a concept called VDOT which is tied to VO2max. Since most people can't measure this in a lab, this is estimated using actual race paces - the more recent the better. After looking at my 10K and marathon times (as well as knowing my 5K time), I was able to establish my VDOT. I then split my 12-week plan into quarters and for the first quarter my paces are set at VDOT, the second quarter is VDOT+1, and the third quarter is VDOT+2. For the fourth quarter, I pull back to VDOT+1 since the final two cycles will effectively be my taper.

As you might have noticed in my picture, I also purchased Build Your Running Body in prep for this cycle. I'm still reading through this to look at adding some things like stretches, some strength exercises, and some diet changes. Thus far I'm finding the info in Build Your Running Body is providing a nice bit of background and lines up well in backing up the information Daniels has in his book (which coincidentally, I'm finding the Build Your Running Body book referring to Daniels work on several occasions). I'll try to review both of these books in more detail in separate posts.

Using the combination of a 10-day cycle and Daniels' workouts and philosophy is going to be a significant change for me as I have relied on a single coach for all my previous efforts. Alas, I've moved beyond what I can find or build on publicly available and free resources and sadly his paid coaching plans are way too steep for me.

This will be interesting to see how this unfolds over the next several weeks.