5k and 10k before marathon training

by Fred
(New York)

How can one use the 100 day marathon plan to improve the 5k/10k time ?

"Dear Marius, and thanks for a great program. I just signed up and although I am not planning to run a marathon before next August/September I have already read the whole marathon plan twice. Before I seriously start training for the marathon I just wanted to try to improve my 5k and 10k times.

Would you recommend that I repeat the first 3-8 weeks several times, similar to what you mentioned if you have more than 100 days to your marathon. I.E. week 1, week 2, week 2, week 3, week 3, week 4, week 4, etc or do you have another formula?

I will be using your 3:00 plan and I hope to run the 5k sub 17 min and the 10k sub 36 min.

Thank you in advance.

Fred

Answer: Hi Fred, you are right on with repeating the first weeks but I suggest you do it the other way around (go backwards) : which means you start with the half marathon speficic weeks (5-8) and then the 10k weeks, then the 5k weeks before using the tapering week 14 + 15 right before you races (with a little bit more speed added in there) This will give you about 9 weeks.

Now, if you need more weeks than this, then just stretch the different periods but keep the relative length of them the same. For example, double the half marathon weeks, double the 10k weeks, double the 5k weeks. For the tapering period, keep the 2 weeks, this is enough.

This cycle will work really well for the 5k and 10 as the half marathon training first will improve your anaerobic threshold and you then bring this into your 10k/5k training later in the training cycle.

Good luck !
Kind regards,
Marius

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