Today is  exactly 13 weeks away from London Marathon (Friends and family, please have a little thought for me on Sunday the 23rd of April). So today is the perfect day to finally write a new blog post. Why? Because 13 is lucky, I think, and because why not?

If for my 3 previous half marathons, I’ve more or less followed 12-weeks plans, it looks like marathon training plans run over 16-weeks. So Sunday the 1st of January was officially the 1st day of the training plan. But as we had a New Year’s Eve party panned on the Saturday, you know what it’s like unless you’re a running machine, there was no chance that I would ever run the day after! So I decided instead to inaugurate my plan one day early with my local Parkrun (plus a 6km return run), and with a PB *woop woop* at 22:39: the perfect way to start this training on a high note.

I left the decision about my plan a bit to the last minute. I ended up choosing the Asics following some fellow club members’ feedbacks and the ability to tailor your plan based on

• the number of runs you could commit to run (I originally thought 2 because of my baby and full time full on job)
• your last race results (my September half marathon in 1:42)
• how hard you want to train, which influences the recommended training paces and the expected finish time (mild/average/hard )

But after 7 days in, I was not convinced it was enough and I decided to run one day a week to work. The advantages to have changed jobs for one that is only 8.5km away! But I was still not convinced about the Asics plan, I thought the recommended pacing ranges were quite broad, and it wasn’t clear what the goal of each run was. And I was worried my training was not going to be efficient if there was not a clear goal for each run.

That’s how I ended up browsing Runner’s World and found a plan that sounded perfect to me who don’t like to eat the pavement miles after miles, day after day: The FIRST training plan, which is sometimes called the “3-day per week marathon training”, “The Less is More marathon training” or the “Train less, run faster marathon training”. The latter may make some hard-core classic marathonians cringe, but to me and probably many other time-poor beginner marathon runner (but probably not for the beginner runner altogether though), it seems like a perfectly structured plan:

• 1 interval run per week for legs’ speed: that’s my Tuesday nights at the track. Only takes me 35mn including Warm Up and Cool Down. 2 weeks ago I did 1200m reps with 400m recovery, last week it was 800m reps with 200m recovery (Yasso 800s?), this week it’s going to be 1600reps, etc…
• 1 tempo run per week to build lactate threshold: from a week to another, these vary in distance from 3mi to 10mi i.e 5km to 16km. And there are runs at 3 different types of “tempo”. I do it one morning per week as my run-commute to work.
• 1 long run to build endurance: That’s my week-end run. It will build up to 20 miles (35km) before tapering back down a couple of weeks before the D-Day.
• 2 cross-training sessions per week, as hard as possible: For me that’s a ballet class for sure. That 2nd cross-training varies between cycling to work once a week (but right now, with negative temperatures and icy roads, it’s not possible) or yoga or a 20mn HIIT in my living room.

So 2 weeks in the FIRST training plan and I really like it so far. I’m actually looking forward to the next run because it’s varied and not mega time consuming. Even my 20km and 21.2km long runs yesterday and the week before were enjoyable and felt easy enough. One thing to know is that the training paces, and more specifically the long run pace, are much faster than in a classic marathon plan, but I guess so they should be. Maybe it should also be called “The train-less-but-harder running plan”. Let’s see how we go when we hit the 15miles and over…

And you, what plan are you following or have you followed if you’ve ever run a marathon? Any thoughts on the FIRST training plan?