Training Plans

Looking for some guidance on training schedule for sub 2.50 marathon, target this years london.

Age 39, male, PB to date 2.51

help, has anyone used the program called accroute to work out distances and routes for running. did anyone find it handy or useless.

See if you can get hold of Bruce Tulloch's training plans from '95 (in runners world) - they may be on this website (subscribers area only though I think). If you pick the 'Professional' set this should let you meet your potential. It basically has quite a few runs of about an hour; at least 2 hard sessions a week (intervals and/ or hills) and you will be running twice a day some days (one of the runs tends to be a 30 minutes easy recovery though). There is also quite a bit of 'steady running' which needs to be at marathon pace.

The intervals are this kind of thing:

1. warm up; 8*4min fast with 2min recovery, warm down

2. wu; 6*6fast with 2 min recover; wd

3. wu; 15min fast, 5min recovery; 10min fast, 5min recovery; 5min fast, 5min recovery; wd (this is a tough one if the fast really is fast!!)

I've always used these schedules and have worked well. It does get quite tough about weeks 8 to 11 as there is a lot of mileage and long tough sessions.

Got Accuroute when I subscribed to RW. Have found it difficult to use, though not entirely useless. However, have now come across much better online service called www.map24.com, which saves messing around downloading or scanning maps. Still takes a bit of practice to measure distances accurately.