Hey everyone,
I've been running somewhat seriously since about 2021, logging minimum 20 km/week year-round, and ramping up/down according to races. Last year I ran my first marathon and ended up bonking pretty hard at 30 km in. A tale as old as time itself. I wasn't following a training plan so I definitely didn't put in enough weekly kilometers to have a good aerobic base etc.
Anyway, this year I'm following the Hanson advanced marathon training plan. I'm 9 weeks in (out of 18) and I feel like the cumulative fatigue is already starting to slap pretty hard. I'm working on slowing down the easy runs which is helping, and the last few weeks have also been quite hot and humid which isn't helping. I am also trying to ramp up my carb intake which has probably been a bit low.
Anyway, my question - seeing as the advanced plan was probably a bit much to chew for my running level (going from 20-30km/week - 70-80 for the last 2 months), and I'm already feeling the fatigue, should I stick to the prescribed one week taper, or make it a two week taper? It seems like most plans generally have a two week taper.
I was thinking about maybe doing one tempo run about two weeks before the race, then hitting 40-50 km that week, and the suggested ~30 km on race week. According to the training plan, the week before race week should be 86 km.
Sorry I missed this earlier, I'm often browsing on other lemmy instances since I find world to be so slow. Thanks for sharing your experience though!
The training plan fell apart pretty hard for me not long after making this post. I'd been dealing with a bit of knee pain that just got worse and worse (and consequently I got slower and slower). Over the last three-ish weeks I reduced my mileage quite a bit, including one week of just 3 miles and lots of stretching. Thankfully my knee is better now and I don't have much pain anymore. But I'm a bit hesitant to dive back into the advanced plan, and in particular the speed sessions.
I'm slowly getting back into the beginner plan but I'll see how well I stick to it. I think at this point trying to keep up a relatively high but slow weekly mileage to maintain an aerobic base will be the way to go, but it will depend on pain. I might just have to suck up another mediocre marathon compared to my goal, and try again next time. I definitely won't be rushing into such an advanced plan again without gradually increasing my weekly mileage more carefully.