NYRR's First-Time Marathoner Training Schedule

Even though I am not a first-time Marathoner I am going to follow the schedule below.

I don't want to overdo it and not be able to run the NYC Marathon because of an injury. I ran 9 races and volunteered at one event with the New York Road Runners to qualify for the NYC Marathon on 11/2/09.

Since it's so difficult to get a spot I don't want to have to give up this opportunity. This will probably be the last Marathon I run because they are so hard on your body.

After this Marathon I would like to start training for a Triathlon which is not so brutal on your body because it also includes biking and swimming.

I'm not the best swimmer so I will have that challenging aspect to tackle and hopefully sometime in 2010 I will complete my first Triathlon.

In the meantime, I'm scheduled to run the NYC Half Marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday, August 16th and the NYC Marathon on Sunday, November 2nd. I am looking forward to both of those events and will have my hands full with training until the end of 2009.

Training Schedules

These are sample schedules. Be flexible. Long runs are on Saturdays in the schedule, but may be switched to other days.

First-Time Marathoner

This is a bare minimum schedule (from a 15-mile-per-week base for at least one month to a peak of 35 miles per week).

M T W Th F Sat Sun Total
Base off 3 off 3 off 6 3 15
Week
1 off 3 off 3 off 8 3 17
2 off 4 off 4 off 6 4 18
3 off 3 off 4 off 10 3 20
4 off 5 off 4 off 8 4 21
5 off 4 off 3 off 13 3 23
6 off 4 4 4 off 8 4 24
7 off 4 4 4 off 15 off 27
8 off 4 4 4 off 10 3 25
9 off 3 4 4 off 16 3 30
10 off 5 5 5 off 12 3 30
11 off 4 4 4 off 18 3 33
12 off 5 6 5 3 12 4 35
13 off 4 4 4 off 20 3 35
14 off 5 6 5 off 12 4 32
15 off 4 4 4 off 20 3 35
16 off 4 4 4 3 15 3 33
17 off 4 4 4 off 6 5 23
18 off 4 4 3 off 2 26.2 13+race