Many athletes want to know when they should start training for their goal races. You may have trained for a race in the past and felt that you either were not prepared enough OR you felt the training cycle was a little long and you felt a bit burnt out. Today we are going to chat about different ways you can break up training so that you will have more longevity in the sport over the long term AND peak for your races at the right time. 

I have heard a lot of people on IG say the phrase ‘I peaked too soon’ for a race. This is likely referring to the feeling that about 1-2 months BEFORE the goal race they were feeling amazing then slowly you started to not feel so great and potentially got slower and were not mentally in it. This ‘peaking too soon’ is something we would like to avoid as athletes and we are going to discuss how

Example mileage if you peak at 50 miles/week for marathon training

OFFEASONS

• You may have gotten away with not doing one in the past but if you are in the sport for a long period of time it will catch up with you

  
  



• All sports have offseasons

  
  



• Avoid black or white thinking

  
  

• Making sure that you take rest/recovery time OFF after a goal race

  
  





• Full week NO running if not longer

  
  



• Solid 4+ weeks without ANY workouts 

  
  



• Solid 4 weeks with no more than 60% of peak mileage (30mpw if 50)

  
  





• have a proper offseason after a big race

  
  





• Offseason mileage can build back gradually but want to keep it still under 70-80% of peak (40mpw is 50 is peak)

  
  

BASE BUILDING

• Making sure you have a solid aerobic base in place before you begin a new training cycle

  
  





• I like to see 6-12 weeks of running at that 70-80% of peak mileage

  
  



• Adding in fartlek workouts

  
  



• Increasing long run but not having much longer than 20-30% of weekly mileage (cap at 12 for the 40 mpw runner)

  
  

When you start ‘marathon training”

• Base building phase lasting 4-10 where you are either increasing

  
  





• Mileage

  
  



• Workouts

  
  



• Long runs

  
  





• Peak training for marathon or half should be limited to 8-14 weeks at right around peak mileage

  
  



• Cut back weeks

  
  



• TAPERING 2-4 weeks

  
  





• First week 25% reduction (38 miles)

  
  



• Second week 25% less than 1st week (29 miles)

  
  



• Third week would be basically nothing