Dumb question - is this plan available anywhere publicly, or do you just have to buy the book?

 

I just ran a 1:48 HM, plan to see if I can go sub-4 in a couple months based on my own personally designed haphazard excuse for a training plan. But after that, thinking about getting into a more formal plan for a fall marathon, and this seems like the one people gravitate toward.

I'm sure the plan is out there, but I recommend reading the book to learn the why's behind each type of workout.

Dumb question - is this plan available anywhere publicly, or do you just have to buy the book?

 

I just ran a 1:48 HM, plan to see if I can go sub-4 in a couple months based on my own personally designed haphazard excuse for a training plan. But after that, thinking about getting into a more formal plan for a fall marathon, and this seems like the one people gravitate toward.

The book is good to read, but there might be certain people here who have a scanned copy of the plan itself to share if you want to peek.  Just let me know.

 

...and their might be other people who have it all entered into a spreadsheet where you just enter in the date of your race and your entire workout calendar gets created for you.

Touche'. I never got far enough in planning to type it out. I do, however, have the Glover "Competitor's and Advanced Competitor's" marathon plan all typed up nicely in a spreadsheet, ready for me to start checking off boxes starting May 13.

Thanks all! The dates on the link Klompus sent are actually perfect - starts immediately after my planned June marathon, ends right at my target fall marathon. Of course I would not expect to be able to jump right into it after a marathon. In any case, I agree it sounds like it would be a good idea to read the book first, and I just checked & found there is a Kindle version. 

Klompus,

I did my first marathon with Pfitz 18/55 and was extremely happy with it.  I had very little running history when I started training, but tried to get my base up to the low 30's before the first week.  It's challenging for sure.  My goal was not sub-4 on week 1, but I had used McMillen to figure out training paces for 4:00 and 4:15 to help self assess as I went.  The plan prepared me for sub-4.  I am now working toward #2 with Pfitz 12/55.  - Happy running

Just having a workout plan without knowing why you are doing something is a bad idea and here's why.

One of the more senseless things that runners do is take a canned plan and follow it to the letter.  At the risk of restating the glaringly obvious, Pete Pfitzinger did not write that plan focused on your strengths and weaknesses.  He wrote it as an average plan for the average runner.  As your training develops, you may find it easier to hit some workouts and more difficult to hit others.  If you are struggling with development of some characteristic, you may need to modify the plan in order to place additional emphasis on that characteristic.  Unless you know the purpose behind each workout, it is difficult to modify the plan based on your individual response to training.

Beyond that, life gets in the way of any plan.  When you miss a workout, what do you do?  You can't run hard workouts two days in a row so which workout do you skip?  Again, without knowing your own strengths and weaknesses based on an analysis of your workouts and your races, that's an impossible question to answer.

Jack, I followed a modified 18/55 (came up to 13/45 eventually) for my 31Mar HM.  Some of the quality workouts are tough for me and I was pretty tired by week 4-5.. Your base should be much stronger than mine..

If you decided to go for Pftiz, we can compare notes as I am likely to wanna run the FM on 01 Dec..  I have already came up with a 16/58 plan but was a little undecided.. Maybe I would do a no-plan for this FM as my goal is just to finish, preferably below 4:30..

Personally, I usually advise against the Pfitz for a first marathon. It's a very intense, unrelenting training plan.

But, to each his own...