If what you are after is a good training plan, there are a number of websites out there that either provide coaching and personalized training plans or let you download training plans for free. I wont recommend any as I haven't tried any myself (yet). This post is not meant to replace those plans, but I think it's nevertheless useful to understand some of the core concepts behind many of the training plans out there. And perhaps you're one of those people who, like me like, to experiment for themselves.
This post is a super condensed version of everything that I've found useful while researching training plans. Topics such as MAF training and 80/20 training deserve far more attention than this article can give them. I find the easiest is to download a podcast and listen to it on your runs. One of the best I've found is the Extramilest Show Podcast that you can listen to on Spotify or YouTube. For anyone planning on taking on the challenge of a long race, I recommend putting in the time to listen/watch/read as much of this content as you can.
The textbook way of structuring a training plan goes something like this: start small, listen to your body. Just get out there and have fun. Build up volume slowly week by week, typically increasing volume no more than 10% from one week to another. But the body also needs time to adapt as the strain/load on the body grows over time. Therefore after three weeks of increasing volume it’s best of having one week of decreased volume, at least 30% less load.
So that's the first two rules of a good training plan right there:
Rule 1: Increase volume by no more than 10% per week
Rule 2: Have a recovery week every 3 weeks
So if you take just this information, then you would start small, build the volume each week by 10% and then add a recovery week every three weeks. Your basic training program could therefore look something like this:
Week 1:
Monday: 3km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 3km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3km
Sunday: rest
Total of 9km in the week
Week 2:
Monday: 4km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 4km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 4km
Sunday: rest
Total of 12km in the week (that's a more than 10% increase week-on-week, but the absolute volume is pretty small, so it should be ok).
Week 3:
Monday: 5km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 5km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5km
Sunday: rest
Total of 15km in the week (that's a more than 10% increase week-on-week, but the absolute volume is pretty small, so it should be ok).
Week 4 (recovery week):
Monday: 3km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 3km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3km
Sunday: rest
Total of 9km in the week
Week 5:
Monday: 6km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 6km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 6km
Sunday: rest
Total of 18km in the week
Week 6:
Monday: 7km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 7km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 7km
Sunday: rest
Total of 21km in the week
Week 7:
Monday: 8km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 8km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8km
Sunday: rest
Total of 24km in the week
Week 8 (recovery week):
Monday: 5km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 5km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5km
Sunday: rest
Total of 15km in the week
Week 9:
Monday: 9km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 9km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 9km
Sunday: rest
Total of 27km in the week
Week 10:
Monday: 10km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 10km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10km
Sunday: rest
Total of 30km in the week (now we're on the 10% mark)
Week 11:
Monday: 11km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 11km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 11km
Sunday: rest
Total of 33km in the week
Week 12 (recovery week):
Monday: 7km
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 7km
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5km
Sunday: rest
Total of 19km in the week
At this point you are running 11km three times a week. You can continue to build this out, to 12...15...in theory you could keep going. But from personal experience and what I've seen other runners do on Strava etc., the beginner/recreational runner (which you still are after 12 weeks of running) would not increase their "normal runs" beyond 15km. Personally, I cap them at 12km here and find that 10km is also a really good distance.
If you didn't cap your individual days, you would go from 3km to 20km runs very quickly in 10% increments, even with recovery weeks included:
Week 1: 3x 3km
Week 2: 3x 3km
Week 3: 3x 5km
Week 4: 3x 3km
Week 5: 3x 7km
Week 6: 3x 8km
Week 7: 3x 10km
Week 8: 3x 7km
Week 9: 3x 11km
Week 10: 3x 12km
Week 11: 3x 13km
Week 12: 3x 10km
Week 13: 3x 14km
Week 14: 3x 15km
Week 15: 3x 16km
Week 16: 3x 10km
Week 17: 3x 17km
Week 18: 3x 20km
Disclaimer: This is definitively NOT a good training plan
For arguments sake, let's jump a few cycles ahead. Let’s say you’ve run 3x 10km in a week, followed by 3x 11km, followed by 3x 12km. Then a recovery week. Now in theory, you could keep going and building that number higher and higher, 10km, 11km, 12km, 13km, 14km, 15km. etc. As above, but I just said that's not a good plan due to the risk of injury. So what is a better way?
Rather than continually increasing the volume to infinity, you will need to cap your “normal” running days at a distance of about 10km (max 15km) of running. In order to increase your volume further you can increase the number of days you run. So instead of running 3x 10km per week you run 4x 10km per week. But if your body is like mine, then this could lead to overuse injuries if your body demands that you have one day of rest after each day of training.
Importantly, in order to be able to run a marathon comfortably you will also need to run further than 10km per week. So instead of adding further training days, you nominate one of your weekly training runs as your “long run”. This is the run that you will build out. From 10km, to 11km to 20km, 25km and perhaps even 30km or 35km at the peak of a marathon training block.
Thus, once you’re up to running 10km comfortably, your weekly training program could look something like this:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 10km
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 10km
Friday: rest:
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 15km/20m/25km
= total of 35-45km per week. (Disclaimer, this also is not a good training plan. Please continue to bear with me as we build this out to something more solid).
We now have 3 rules to build a training plan:
Rule 1: Increase volume by no more than 10% per week
Rule 2: Have a recovery week every 3 weeks
Rule 3: Nominate one of your runs as your “long runs” to build stamina
Now to be clear, there is no reason why you would ever need to run more than 10km, or perhaps even 5km, if your only goal is to get fit/healthy. Long runs and everything that follows here is for those that are seeking to go from their couch to the half-marathon, marathon or ultra distances.
But if you do want to run a marathon you'll find that many training plans recommend total weekly running volumes of 50-60km or more and slowly take your long run up to 30km or even 35km prior to your race. At this point we need to return to the topic of injury risk. If you run 2x10km during the week and 1x30km at the weekend, that will get you up to a very respectable 50km of volume per week. But there is also a good chance that those 2x10km runs don't give you a good enough base to run the 30km without the risk of injury.
Furthermore, imagine you go out for a drink and are hung over the next day (more on the relevance of alcohol/sleep in a later post) and miss out on a run. Perhaps the day after, you have guests visiting and again you are unable to “catch up” on the run. So all you have done therefore is gone for one 10km run and then you do the 25km long run. This may work, especially if you’ve already been training for several months. But if you’re instead in the phase of building volume in order to get for a race such as a marathon, you risk injury.
This is where Rule 4 running comes in:
The distance of your long run should not make up more than approximately 30% of your total weekly volume.
But now we get to a puzzle that I had fought with ever since I started running 18 months ago and one that saw me struggle to increase my volume much beyond 30-40km per week at most:
Even if your two “regular” runs are at 15km each (which would be long), a 25km long run would make up 45% (25km/55km) of your weekly training volume. Significantly above the 33% target rate.
So how it seems the only solution is to increase your running days from three times per week to four or even five. But remember the injury risk? The challenge is thus to find a way to run that does not require your body to have a day of rest in between each session of training. And this fatigue wasn't imagined. Even my Garmin watch would tell me to take 37 hours of rest after a run.
The pros do it, so why can't we? For a while I felt that I would just have to accept the fact that I’m too old or my knees too fragile to get to a higher weekly mileage. And then I stumbled across two training concepts at about the same time. The 80/20 rule and the “MAF” training.
Let's briefly talk about MAF trainingg first. I say briefly because it the topic is so expansive and so important that it deserves you dedicating multiple hours to the concept. Look at videos, listen to podcasts and perhaps even read a book about it. The godfather of MAF training is Dr. Phil Maffetone. You can downloan a free ebook from his website. There are also many good talks on Floris Gierman's YouTube channel.
So what's it all about? It's all about low heart rate training.
If you run at a high heart rate the strain on your body is a lot higher than at a low heart rate. So if you run at a low heart rate, you can go out an run again tomorrow. In fact when you get home after your normal run you should feel like you could head straight back out and do it again. Low heart rate training therefore is the key to increasing your weekly mileage without injury.
The idea is that you need a very strong base on top of which to then build the rest of your running skill set. As you train with low heart rate, you will with time be able to achieve the same results at a lower heart rate. In other words you will be able to run faster with the same heart rate.
How slow should you run? The goal is to do your runs in the Zone 2. To be more precise the rule of thumb is to run at a heart rate of no more than "180 minus your age". For me as a 46 year old this means a max heart rate of 134 during low heart rate training.
We now have Rule 5:
“run slow to run fast”. Train at your MAF heart rate. This is approximately 180 minus your age.
Running in Zone 2 is something that in the past seemed near impossible to me. To be clear, depending on your overall level of fitness, low heart rate training can be incredibly frustrating at the beginning. You may not notice benefits immediately and your runs may have to be verrrrrry slow. So take an ebook or podcast on your run.
Gareth King said about MAF trainging "Just lose the ego. Be consistent". In order to do low heart rate training you need to keep your ego in check. If you're constantly thinking about your friends on Strava and what they might think of your slow times, then this will be frustrating. My understanding is that you should give it 3 months in order to build a solid base.
While it is said that low heart rate training lacks the instant gratification of running new personal bests on a weekly basis, I found that this must not be the case. While you may not be able to post a new weekly best on your 10km training runs each week, low heart rate training does enable you to post new weekly training distance records each week. You can succeed in building out your training volume from say 30km to 70km in a relatively short time frame. And I at least, think that this is just as impressive as posting a new 10km PB at a pace of 4:30min/km down from 5:30min/km.
Say you are able to run 50km per week today. Now you train at a low heart rate and add on 5km of distance per week (10%). If you do this three of every four weeks, then you'll be up to 65km in three weeks time and up to 80km in 7 weeks time. That's very impressive. Though you'll need to continue to listen to your body and take extra weeks if you feel the load is too great.
An example training week could now look like this:
Monday: 12km @ 134bpm max (which could be a 6:00min/km pace)
Tuesday: 12km @ 134bpm max
Wednesday: 12km @ 134bpm max
Thursday: rest
Friday: 12km @ 134bpm max
Saturday: 25km @ 134bpm max
Sunday: rest
Total: 73km, of which the long run at 25km makes up 34%
But that's not the end of it quite yet. No training plan would be complete if there weren't some speed sessions, some intervals or hill repeats involved. Once you've built your base it is important to add the occasional higher heart rate session. If only to convince yourself that you have the pace you are striving for on race day.
This is were Rule 6 comes in:
Train 80% of the time at your MAF heart rate, and 20% at higher intensity.
So now that you've completed approximately 3 month of base building with MAF, you can introduce a weekly speed session. And get that weekly hit. In fact you can sprinkle them in earlier. But make sure you give your body time to rest after those higher intensity sessions if you want to be able to ensure that you're still able to go out for your low intensity runs on all the other days.
So a typical week may therefore look like this:
- Monday: 12km @ 134bpm max (which could be a 6:00min/km pace)
- Tuesday: 12km @ 134bpm max
- Wednesday: 12km: 2km warm-up, 8x 800meter @ 4:00 pace with 200m
recovery in between, 2km cool down
- Thursday: rest
- Friday: 12km @ 134bpm max
- Saturday: 25km @ 134bpm max
- Sunday: rest
Total: 73km of which 61km (83%) are at MAF. Note the rest day after the interval session.
As with MAF low heart rate training, there is lot's more to the 80/20 rule and it deserves a couple of hours of your dedication. Here are a couple of links to get you started:
YouTube video by The Running Channel: What Is 80 / 20 Running And How Can I Apply it To My Training?
What is 80/20 training? By Runner's World
Matt Fitzgerald's book: 80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster
80/20 Endurance Training Plans
Now we have a total of six rules for designing a running plan:
1) Increase volume by no more than 10% per week
2) Have a recovery week every 3 weeks
3) Nominate one of your runs as your “long runs” to build stamina
4) the distance of your long run should not make up more than approximately 30% of your total weekly volume
5) “run slow to run fast”. Train at your MAF heart rate. This is approximately 180 minus your age.
6) Train 80% of the time at your MAF heart rate, and 20% at higher intensity.
That's it. Bear in mind that if your training for a cross country race, you need to incorporate some off road / hilly training sessions in your plan. In other words, you need race-specific training. This is best introduced after your base building period but before you peak.
Also when we talk about races, I have found that races are a great way just to train in a supported environment. To date I have yet to participate in a race where my goal was anything other than completing the race. This will change later this year, but my tip is simply to sign up to races
Now let’s build a hypothetical training plan for somebody just starting off but wanting to progress all the way to a 60km per week run rate.
Week 1:
Monday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 12km
Week 2:
Monday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 12km
Week 3:
Monday: 4km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 4km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 4km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 4km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 16km
Week 4 (recovery week):
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 3km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 9km
Week 5:
Monday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 20km
Week 6:
Monday: 6km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 6km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 6km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 6km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 24km
Week 7:
Monday: 7km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 7km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 7km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 7km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 28km
Week 8 (recovery week):
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 5km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 15km
Week 9:
Monday: 8km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 8km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 8km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 32km
Week 10:
Monday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 36km
Week 11:
Monday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 40km
Week 12 (recovery week):
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 9km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 27km
Week 13:
Monday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 44km
Week 14:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 48km
Week 15:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 15km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 51km
Week 16 (recovery week):
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 30km
Week 17:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 15km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 51km
Week 18:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 56km
Week 19:
Monday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate (introduce 5th training day)
Thursday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 60km
Week 20 (recovery week):
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 15km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 35km
Week 21:
Monday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Thursday: 11km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 64km
Week 22:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 68km
Week 23:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Thursday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 25km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 73km
Week 24 (recovery week):
Monday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Thursday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 40km
Week 25:
Monday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Tuesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Wednesday: 12km @ MAF heart rate
Thursday: 12km: 2km warm-up, 8x 800meter @ 4:00 pace with 200m recovery in between, 2km cool down
Friday: rest
Saturday: 25km @ MAF heart rate
Sunday: rest
Total: 73km
Notes:
- This plan assumes you'll be able to train 5 times per week as 83% of training is
at MAF (61km = 73km - 12km)
- training has increased by about 10% week on week
- every three weeks there is a recovery week to de-load the body.
- The long run at 25km equates to 34% of the weekly total.
- there is a rest day after the intense workout day on and the long run day.
To summarize: the aim of this blog post was to lay out some of the main concepts of putting together a training plan for the beginner ultra runner. But even when you've put together your plan and you have the biggest motivation to stick to it, life still intervenes and you'll find that you have to move or skip sessions. My most frustrating frustrations have been phases where I've caught a cold and have missed out from training for one or two weeks at a time. So with this in mind, it’s important to keep a relatively relaxed (yet dedicated) attitude to your training plans. And when you draw up a plan for a specific race, just bear in mind that you will likely lose 1-2 weeks due to a cold or small injury. That way if you incorporate a buffer phase into your training plan you will limit the extent for frustration when life decides to throw a spanner in your training plan.