marathon training plans

Galloway's plans don't train you to run a marathon, but rather to complete a marathon using his run with walk breaks method. While a lot of people use the walk-break method, I haven't heard of many people who follow his plan completely, specifically in that even his "to finish" plan calls for a long run-walk of 26 miles (29 miles in his "time-goal" plan).

There are dozens of well-used plans out there; the appropriate training program depends on your background and goals. Thousands use plans by Hal Higdon for simplicity,  Pfitzinger-Douglas for effectiveness, and/or FIRST plans for the three-runs-per-week schedule.

Affirmative. A lot of them you can even get free off of Runnersworld.com.

I personally know a few hundred people who have followed his plan completely. Most charity marathon programs use the Galloway run-walk method. I agree it is a difficult plan to do on your own, since very few people have the discipline to do the 26-miler as slowly, and with as high a run-walk ratio, as is recommended without peer pressure and consistent advice from a coach.

Galloway claims that about 200,000 people have used his program to finish a marathon, and that sounds about right (even coming from him) if you add up all the programs that use his method and the number of years they've been in operation.

Come to think of it, it's hard to do any marathon program on your own. There is probably a marathon training group in your area, and most of them will have a pace group or two for beginning and/or slower runners.

My personal .02 on Galloway (and I've memorized his book and attended his seminar and done marathons on his program--and not):

+ run-walk makes it really easy to rack up miles (whereas running straight, even cautiously building, for me, gets tough around 7-8 miles ... I see a lot of other first-timers hit difficulties around 9-10)

+ run recovery from long runs and the marathon is very fast--a day or two at most 

+ injuries are very rare

- I'm not sure the 26-miler is a great idea--it can be good for first timers who are running with a well-coached group, it really builds confidence and ensures you won't hit a wall during the marathon--but I haven't heard better reasons from Jeff for it

- In his book, he advocates minimal stretching, and ideally only at the end of a day; during the seminar, he spoke out much more strongly against it: "You are absolved of ALL STRETCHING DUTY!" (I even asked again, just to make sure). I know there's a lot of pro/con, but I think it's a little extreme to throw it out altogether.

Good luck, Tanya, and I hope you find something that works for you!

 so happy to see this thread - i'm going to run next year's nyc marathon (my first!) and i'm contemplating using hal higdon's plan 

i followed it for my first half marathon this past march