Subject: Advice on choosing between these two marathon plan I know that both these plans are basically beginner marathon plans designed to help you finish a marathon. I just finished my first HIM yesterday and am taking this week off to do light recovery training. I'm registered to run the PF Changs full marathon in Phoenix on January 17, 2010. If I start either plan next Monday that gives me 11 weeks to train for the full marathon (I would start either plan on week 8). I know that's not a lot of time but like I said, I am coming off a 20 week HIM plan and set a PR in the half marathon of the HIM yesterday. So, I'm trying to decide between the Hal Higdon novice 2 plan or the intermediate 1 plan. Here are the links for the respective plans: Novice 2: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/novices2.htm Intermediat 1: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/inter1.html If you count the race yesterday, I'm most recently up to 27 miles a week. The novice plan starts out with 30 miles the first week and the intermediate plan starts with 37 miles. Both fluctuate with the max volume in the novice plan of 35 miles and 45 in the intermediate plan. My utimate goal is to finish under 4 but I'd like to go as fast as 3:49:99. I guess I'm asking for general advice as I've never trainded for a full marathon and I'm a little intimidated about running the 5x a week that the intermediate plan calls for. I know that I'd have to pay close attention to running pace and keep it much slower on longer runs then what I usually run at so that I can absorb the training and avoid injury. I'd like to keep my cycling fitness up but as an accountant I'm facing 60-70 hour work weeks starting in January and continuing through April. I'm going to lose my bike fitness no matter what so I kind of want to focus on the marathon and then start training for triathlons again after tax season. So, any advice on which plan would be better? I hope I've provided enough information here. My logs are also up to date if my annual information would be beneficial. |