Become a FIRST-Timer

Anyone can adapt and use the FIRST training plan's basic principles. Just follow the eight rules below, and the 16-week FIRST training plan here. For more information, visit www.furman.edu/FIRST.

Run efficiently, run for life Bill Pierce is a tough, performance-oriented guy, but he explains the FIRST programme from a fitness and philosophical perspective. He believes that a three-day running week will make running easier and more accessible to many potential marathon runners. It will also limit overtraining and burnout. Finally, with several days of cross-training, it should cut your risk of injury substantially. This may lead to faster race times. More importantly to Pierce, it adds up to a programme that many time-stressed people can follow for years without injury. "Our most important objective is to help runners develop and maintain lifelong participation in running," he says. "Our second goal is to help them achieve as much as possible on a minimum of running training." Run three times a week… and no more This is the centrepiece of the entire FIRST programme. FIRST runners do only three running sessions a week. This decreases the overall time commitment of the programme, and the risk of injuries – important considerations to many runners. Each of the three workouts has a specific goal. That’s something few runners have considered. "With most runners, when I ask them what they’re hoping to accomplish on a given run, they look back at me with a blank stare," says Pierce. "I don’t think they’ve ever thought about this question before. We have." The three FIRST workouts – a long run, a tempo run and a speed workout – are designed to improve your endurance, lactate-threshold running pace and leg speed. Build your long run to 20 miles The FIRST marathon training programme builds up to two 20-mile sessions, the second one taking place three weeks before your marathon race date. But covering 20 miles is the easy part of the FIRST programme. The harder part is the pace – 60-75 seconds slower per mile than your 10K race pace. Many other marathon programmes allow you to run much slower than this, by as much as 30-40 extra seconds per mile. "It’s true that our long runs won’t let you admire the scenery as much," says Pierce, "but they aren’t painful either. They just push you a little beyond the comfort zone. If you’re going to race a marathon, you have to do some hard long runs to find the toughness and focus you’ll need on race day." Run three different kinds of tempo runs The tempo run has become a mainstay of many training programmes, but the FIRST programme carries the concept further than most, adding more variety and nuance. FIRST runners do three different kinds of tempo runs: short tempos (three to four miles), mid tempos (five to seven miles) and long tempos (eight to 10 miles). Each of these is run at a different pace. "We’ve found that the long tempo run is particularly helpful," says Pierce. "You’re basically running at your marathon goal pace, so you’re gaining maximum specificity of training, and improving your efficiency at the pace you want to run in your marathon."

Put more variety in your speedwork Many runners do no speedwork at all. Those who do often fall into a rut, running the same session time after time. Pierce learnt long ago that this approach makes speedwork much harder than it should be. "I used to run exactly the same speed workout week after week," he recalls. "After a while, I would start to dread that session. Speedwork is much easier when you change it around a lot." The FIRST runners do many different speed sessions at different paces, generally taking just a 400m jog between the fast repeats. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve narrowed the selection to four distances at four paces. (See "The FIRST Paces", page 60.) Be creative, though – you don’t need to stick to these particular sessions. Pierce has just one more rule for speed training: start modestly, but after a month, the total distance of all the fast repetitions in one session should equal about three miles or five kilometres (i.e. running 5 x 1,000m, or 12 x 400m).

Cross-train twice a week – hard

Last autumn the FIRST coaches asked their subjects to cross-train twice a week, but they didn’t provide any additional instruction. This autumn they will, because they think too many of the runners dawdled through the cross-training last year. This caused them to miss out on some potential training benefits. "We believe that if you cross-train correctly, you can use it to increase your overall training intensity, without increasing your injury risk," says Pierce. "At the same time, you can still go out and run hard the next day." The point is this: even though last year’s test group didn’t cross-train as hard as they could have or should have, they still set a slew of PBs.

Don’t try to make up for lost time

Stuff happens. During a 16-week marathon programme, lots of stuff happens. You become ill, you sprain your ankle, you have to go on several last-minute business trips, and so on. Result: you miss some key sessions, maybe even several weeks of running. Then what? "You can’t make up what you missed," says Pierce, "and you certainly shouldn’t double up on your workouts to catch up with your programme. Often, if you had a slight cold or too much travel, you can recover and return to where you want to be quickly. But if you have foot pain or iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome or something like that, you have to take care of your injury first." This can take weeks, and it’s really difficult if you’ve been looking forward to a big race. You have to accept it, though, and often you return to health and can run an accompanying half-marathon. But you shouldn’t try the marathon until you’re fully prepared for it. Reschedule another in a few months’ time.

Follow a three-week taper

The FIRST programme builds for 13 weeks, with the second 20-mile long run coming at the end of the 13th week. After that, the programme begins to taper off, with 15- and 10-mile long runs during weeks 14 and 15. The speedwork and tempo runs taper down slightly, with a final eight-mile tempo run at marathon goal pace coming 10 days before the marathon. "The marathon taper has tripled in length during my career," Pierce notes. "When I first started out in the 1970s, we did only a six-day taper for our marathons. Now the conventional wisdom is three weeks, and that makes sense to me. It seems about the right amount of time to give you the maximum spring back in your step." If you feel sluggish doing just the easy running in the final week (this is very common, by the way), then do five or six 100m strides or pickups after the Tuesday and Thursday workouts. Do some extra stretching afterwards as well.