Yet another 3 day a week training program

Came across this Toronto based blog called Stellar Runners. They tout the virtues of training according to the plans of the Furman Institutes First Training program. The First program has gained a lot of popularity (or notariety if you wish) with it's 3 days of running and 3 days of cross training style of marathon training. I'm not a fan of it. Some who have tried it had some success, others not so much. Many end up changing it to eliminate the cross training days, often substituting easy runs...this basically makes it pretty well the same as any other training program a-la Higdon or one of the RW plans. The cross training needs to be pretty intense for it to work and the run days are all hard days (tempo, intervals, long) so no real break in the program. I prefer easy runs, doing one quality day a week (hills or intervals depending), one tempo and my long, do a mid long (great for practicing marathon pace) and lots of easy stuff.

Anyway, the blog stumbled on another flavour of 3 day a week plans, this one called the PRO System, which is somehow related to this site called Marathon Nation. It seems this one differs in their use of pace prediction tables from one's 5k times, which they seem to believe reveals your best training strategies. Doesn't really sound like anything McMillan's Pace Calculator couldn't reveal but maybe there's something magical about their implementation that makes it all come together. or not.

It's some mix of threshold pacing for tempos and intervals (nothing new there) and what looks a little like MP and threshold based progression runs for long runs. Personally all I see is a lot of fast running that'll make you hate every workout. And it's all unnecessary.

Marathon training is easy, there's no secret to it. Get out 5-6 days a week, 3 of them nice and easy, keep your long runs easy but don't hesitate to add a little MP paced stuff during them (avoid that in the very long runs though), get a good solid mid week mid long that you can run pretty close to MP pace on. Do a tempo run as well, you can consider alternating the tempo run with intervals or hills on alternate weeks if you wish. The longs are every 2 weeks with mid longs an the in-between weeks, and a classic 3 weeks taper. Always go by feel, know what easy is and don't kid yourself on it, running too hard is counterproductive.

The other really important thing...don't confuse marathon training with proper conditioning training. Marathon training is designed to get you through a marathon, it is not designed to make you a faster overall runner. Another thing to remember, if you do take on marathon training, build a really good solid base by running lots of easy miles before you start formal training. If you're taking on a 50 or 55 mpw plan, don't hesitate to be doing at least that much for a few months before you start. Building a good solid base gives you lots to feed off during training and can make the task so much easier to manage. The miles will toughen you up and you'll be less likely to get injured when you start increasing those long runs. Plus you'll be able to recover faster.