Twin Cities Marathon Training Plan

It is almost that time!  Starting next week, I will start my training program for the Twin Cities Marathon.  I am excited, nervous, scared, nauseated, and I think I have to pee a little bit.... but no matter, starting on Monday, I will be exercising for the purpose of running 26 miles and 385 yards.

Here is my current training plan (with some explanation after the jump):
 


This plan is a slightly modified version of the full marathon plan from the Run Less, Run Faster book that I've mentioned a few times before.


The Tuesday repeats, the Thursday Tempo/Pace runs, and the Saturday Long/Pace runs are pretty much set in stone (with possibly some shifting of a day one way or the other).  These are the core workouts of my training plan.  Both the Tuesday and Thursday workouts usually have warmups and cooldowns, so the actual mileage run on those days will be more than what is indicated... but the listed values are the "working" part of the workout.

A brief explanation about paces:

• "Pace" means "Marathon Pace," meaning my current projection of what my overall pace will be for the TC marathon.  It is based on current performance (e.g., it will start as what McMillan Running Calculator says my marathon pace should be based on my Lincoln Half Marathon time, and will hopefully get faster as the training program goes on)
• "Short Tempo" is the fastest of my three tempo paces.  It is a bit slower than my 5K pace
• "Mid Tempo" is the middle of the three tempo paces.  It is about 10-15 seconds slower than my 10K pace.
• "Long Tempo" is the slowest of the three tempo paces, and is more like a fast long run pace.  It is another 15 seconds/mi slower than the Mid tempo pace.
• "Long Run" actually includes several different paces that vary from 10 seconds/mi slower than marathon pace to 60 seconds/mi slower than marathon pace.  They start off in the 30-45 sec/mi above MP early in the training program, and pick up to the 10-20 sec/mi above MP toward the end (the toughest being the Week 13 20 miler, which is at 15 sec/mi above MP)

The Monday Cross Training or Easy Runs are flexible and subject to change, as are the Wednesday Cross Training Days.

If I'm feeling really good on a Sunday, I might add an extra Cross Training workout, but I doubt it.

We'll see how it goes.