How to go faster than the 2:45 plan?

by Steve
(UK)

Adjustments for the 100 day plan - down under 2:45 :

"Hi Marius,

I have read a few questions from people asking you how to adjust the 2:45 plan for a 2:30 marathon, and you suggest adding an average of 2 extra easy runs/week of approx 45 mins, and run the sessions faster.

I wonder if you can be more specific about the session speeds?

I notice the difference between Effort 3 pace in the 3:00 plan and the 2:45 plan is 33s per mile (ie. 6:37/mile vs 6:04/mile), so is the answer as simple as saying that for a 2:30 plan Effort 3 pace should be 5:31/mile, and make the same calculations for the other Effort categories 1-5? And therefore for a target time in-between 2:45 and 2:30 work out the required Effort paces on the same basis?

Thanks,
Steve"

Answer: Hi Steve and thanks for your question.

Your math is correct - this is one way to do this, time-wise. However, if you are tuning into times at 2:30 or faster I would strongly consider using a heart rate monitor for most of the work. It is much more accurate in terms of training stress / effect, especially for faster runners.

One thing you MAY do though, if you are aiming this fast (this is not recommended for any other plans) is to split it into two : running on times the first part to get used to the specific paces, and at week 7-8 switch to running by heart rate. That gives you both pacing in the first part and better intensity control in the second part, if you want to experiment a bit.

I wish you all the best,

kind regards,
MArius