Hello David,
Hope you are well. I purchased the 80/20 level three plan back in June and used it to train for my first marathon. I loved it! It helped me to a 3:24 in NYC. I am looking to shave some time off and am running my second in March. I know there is no “Level 4” but do have any suggestions on how to tweak the plan to help get me to my goal?
Thanks!
J
J,
So glad to hear about your success! 3:24 in your first marathon is a solid result.
Although we don’t yet have a Level 4 plan Marathon plan, if/when we do build it, I would create it in this manner:
1. An increase of 20% total volume from the L3 plan. If the weekly schedule called for 7 hours of running, I would up that to 8.4 hours. That could be achieved by simply adding 20% to each run, or adding another 1.5 hours over 2-3 runs.
2. Add 1 interval segment to every other interval run. For example, if Monday called for 3×2.5 in Zone 4 on 5 minutes rest, make that 4×2.5. Make no modification to the next interval run, then add an interval to the third interval run.
3. Increase the long week-end runs by 2 miles. This would be done in conjunction with #1 above.
David
