Recently, we had a live chat with our athletes and members of the Online Run Club regarding a very basic question, “what do I do now?” Most of our runners were coming off from fall marathons and many of them had simply followed the plans from Hansons Marathon Method where it was a very intensive training block. So what we did, was lay out a few things that people could do based on where they were with their running. I have discussed this topic before (Moving beyond the basics), but this will be offer a few different takes. Below I laid out what I would do given a specific circumstance.
Between now and training for Boston
This is a very specific schedule problem, but can also work for someone who runs a late spring marathon, but has a number of weeks to fill before you actually need to begin training for a marathon you know you are going to be training for in the fall. Since I am writing this after fall marathon season and people were specifically concerned about Boston, I will stick to this example. You can use the idea for whenever you find yourself in a similar situation.

Our main problem is, even if you run a late fall marathon, say New York, you still have at least a month before you need to begin training for Boston. With that, what do I do? (panicked voice).

Don’t get too excited. What I found was people got into Boston and they were instantly motivated to run up every hill that they could find. The problem with that is I want you to be in peak fitness in April, not February! Getting too fit too soon is very common.
How to utilize your 4-8 weeks of stagnicity? For many it is a perfect opportunity to ensure that you are fully recovered from a hard training segment. I’m not saying to just blow two months off, but rather focus on keeping mileage at a reasonable level- say 60-70% of your marathon peak. Do workouts that will maintain general fitness and allow an easy transition into marathon training. It’s a great opportunity to also add a component that you know you need work on, whether it’s strides, general strength, core, whatever you know you need to begin work on.
The other option is based around the idea of whether you need 18 weeks to get ready for the marathon. Since you just came off a marathon training block and are going to go into another one, I don’t think there is always a need for the 18 week training block. What a lot of my athletes are doing is either a base building segment, a speed segment, or a half marathon segment that will end in early January, do a week of recovery (light running), and then jump into a dedicated marathon segment. It’s a great way to break up the winter, get different work in, but then still be in a position to go right into a 12 week marathon specific training block. Now what, we would do would depend on what the runner needed, but also a lot of it was where they were living. Trying to do a dedicated speed segment in a tough winter location is difficult and might not yield the results we are looking for.

We offer a Boston Marathon group that begins in December and is an 18 week program. However, it is set up so that we are building into that 18 weeks where the we spend several weeks gradually building fitness. This also makes it very easy for a person who is doing #3 above to jump into the group after an early January race.


Just ran your first marathon:
If you are in this group and used Hanson’s, there’s a decent chance you hated me for a little bit. Who knows, you still might. I know the program is a tough program, especially if it’s your first exposure to this type of structured training. Knowing that, I feel how you move forward from here is really important.

Make sure you are recovered! Take the two weeks off. Take your time coming back. Here’s a super simple 4 Week Plan to help you return to running after your two weeks off. That now puts you 6 weeks post race and ready to go in whatever direction you think is best.

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