Chicago Marathon Val

This is my personalized marathon training plan which is a modified version of Hal Higdon’s Novice program.

When I was training for my first marathon, I foolishly used his Intermediate program, even though I was a novice!  I sustained a moderately severe injury during this training season, which is why this year I am making the plan more flexible for my schedule and my needs.  I have found that running just three days a week is plenty good enough to build up my muscles, lung capacity, and endurance.  Basically, I run the long run every week as specified with Hal’s plan, plus I run one of his short runs per week, one medium, always have one rest day, and the other 3 days are comprised of cross-training.  I do strive for 6 days of exercise per week, but sometimes things come up and I only get in 4 or 5 days a week, which is ok too.  In fact, I realize for many people this may seem excessive but I love going to the gym and I miss it on “off” days, so to me it is not a chore but quite the opposite – going to the gym is one of the best parts of my day

While Hal has specific guidelines for cross-training days, I think that you can be a bit lenient with this.  I love spinning classes, so I do this about twice a week (on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is why I plan my runs for Tuesdays and Thursdays).  On cross-training days that I don’t spin, I like to plan attend an aerobics class at my gym (such as cardio bootcamp), a sculpting class, or “design my own” cardio session by using a mixture of the reclining bike, elliptical, stairmaster, and strength training.

I encourage anyone who is thinking about training for a long-distance race to research various plans (Hal Higdon, Amby Burfoot, Jeff Galloway, etc.) to find out what works for you.  Marathon training should be challenging but also fun, and I personally enjoy running more when I am only running 3 days a week.  Happy running!