I'm currently training for my first marathon (Sunderland, April 28th). Until recently I was just a recreational runner: 3 or 4 days a week I'd run at an easy pace for 30-60 minutes. Over the last couple of weeks I've started doing 3 mile tempo runs and slowly increasing my long runs (my last was 9 miles). My new schedule looks like this:
Sun- 6 miles at easy pace
Mon- 3 mile tempo
Tue- Rest
Wed- Long run
Thu- 3 mile tempo
Fri- Rest
Sat- Rest
Running and resting on these days best fits my schedule so I won't be changing that. My idea is to keep the other 3 runs the same each week and increase my long runs each week. I want to get up to a run of around 30 miles before the marathon (I know a lot of programs peek at about 20 miles but i would rather know I can manage beyond the race distance).
Is this a feasible training program?
Comments
It's a training plan but there are good reasons that plans for marathons don't include a 30 mile run.
Why not read some of the training threads ?
Who / what gave you the idea that 30 mile runs would be beneficial?
Generally your second longest run should be half the distance of your longest run, so if you want to do a 30M LSR you need to build up to a 15M medium long run. However, I can't say I'd advise a low-mileage first-time marathoner to go beyond 22M as their longest run. The injury risk is just far too high. I also don't think it's a good idea to do a tempo run and your long run on consecutive days. Both count as a quality session and should be separated by a rest day or short easy run.