Adding mileage to the 100 day plan

by John C
(London)

Adding mileage to the marathon plan :

"Hi Marius,

I have just purchased the 100 day plan and I am looking forward to getting underway. I do however have one uncertainty that I would be grateful for a response to. I have been injured for the last couple of years but my last competitive marathon before this was run in 2:29. To achieve this I ran lots of 100 mile+ weeks with 4 double days each week.

The 100 day plan seems to have considerably less mileage involved each week and no double days at all. Also, is the 2:45 plan suited to a runner looking to improve on a previous 2:29 PB?

Your response would be gratefully received.

Thanks

John"

Answer: Hi John, with your background of running substantial mileage before and a goal of running sub 2:30 I would definately add in there some more mileage.

The way to deal with this and the 100 day plan is as follows :

1. Pick the 2:45 plan

2. Follow ALL the hard workouts using heart rate. Do NOT add any more hard runs or any mileage/repeats to the interval sessions. They are plenty of hard enough for running well down towards 2 hours..

3. Add in there easy runs in Effort 1. You can do this through doubles and increasing mileage on those runs that are already there.

4. I suggest you try and build yourself up to this, maybe using the first 4-6 weeks of the schedule just following the mileage set there, and after that gradually increase it by adding runs/minutes - and aiming for 80-100 mile weeks (if you feel ready for it and want a sub 2:30 time) after those 4-6 initial weeks.

That should make you set :)

I wish you all the best,

regards,
Marius