My 2018 New York City Marathon Training Plan
If it’s July, I’m starting to train for the New York City Marathon! This will be my sixth consecutive year participating in the event, which is consistently the highlight of my running year. Everything about this race is big! It takes place in the largest city in the United States, yields approximately 50,000 finishers, and is attended by thousands of enthusiastic spectators.
Prologue
The 2018 Boston Marathon left me mentally and physically defeated. I had hoped to run sub-3:30 that day, but instead turned in my slowest marathon time ever by taking over 4 hours to finish. The race was the end of a long training cycle that began in May 2017 when I started preparing for the 2017 New York City Marathon. I also ran my first ultra-marathon in January, the 2018 San Diego 50 Miler.
I spent the summer getting physically fit and excited about running again before starting another marathon training cycle. I kept my mileage relatively low – about 40 miles a week – but ran some solid speed workouts and hit the gym about twice a week. I also took steps to improve my general health by getting on high blood pressure medication and losing a few pounds.
The Plan
Choosing or Designing a Plan. For this training cycle, I chose the 18 week, 55-70 miles per week plan from Advanced Marathoning, Second Edition by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas (aka “Pfitz”).
Setting a Start Date. The 2018 New York City Marathon is on Sunday, November 4, 2017. The plan is 18 weeks, which would make my start date July 2nd.
Scheduling Mini-Cycles. Pfitz breaks the plan into four mini-cycles (called “mesocycles”) – Endurance, Lactate Threshold, Race Preparation, and the Taper. Here’s where they’ll fall on my calendar:
Endurance: 6 weeks – Monday, July 2nd to Sunday, August 13th
Lactate Threshold and Endurance: 5 weeks – Monday, August 14th to Sunday, September 17th.
Race Preparation: 4 weeks – Monday, September 18th to Sunday, October 15th
Taper: 3 weeks – Monday, October 16th to Saturday, November 4th
Arranging Workouts. To make my weekly schedule more predictable (i.e., less stressful), I modified the plan by moving the workouts around during the first two phases so that the hard days will always be on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My long run will be on Saturday. I might also add a couple more lactate threshold workouts during these phases to help with my speed endurance. During the race preparation cycle and taper, I’ll probably race or run long on Sunday and move the hard days to Tuesday and Thursday.
With these changes, can I still say I’m following a Pfitz plan? Perhaps not but my schedule will still have his signature medium-long runs during the week, and marathon-pace long runs every few weeks.
Selecting Tune-up Races: In Advanced Marathoning, two 8K-15K tune-up races appear two weeks apart during the Race Preparation phase. There is also an 8K-10K race two weeks before the goal marathon during the Taper. However, most of the races this length in the Washington D.C. region are on Sundays. I’ll probably run these two races:
Sunday, September 16th – 2018 Navy Air Force Half Marathon
Sunday, October 7th – 2018 Army Ten Miler
(My Complete Racing Schedule.)
Designing a Cross-Training Program. This summer, in an effort to regain strength in my hips, quadriceps, and hamstrings; I weight trained on Sunday and Tuesday or Friday. I also did drills once a week. I will try to continue this practice through November.
With all of this in mind, I created a training plan on RunningAhead and download it to my calendar in Outlook.
Contemplating a Race Goal. My goal is to feel like this at the end of the race:
And then to see sub-3:25 (7:50 pace) on the clock. I ran 3:28:54 (7:59 pace) at the 2017 New York City Marathon. My strategy was to run an aggressive first half and expect to get eaten up on Fifth Avenue and Central Park like I always do. If I get to the starting line fitter, maybe I can shave a few minutes off of last year’s performance.
Other Thoughts
I’m starting this training cycle with an “all in” mentality. Beyond training, I’ll also work on improving my nutrition and sleep habits between now and November. I want to get the most out of the workouts rather than just going through the motions.
Alright, time to get things started. See you in November, New York!
Good luck JT!
I hope you stay injury free and the weather is kind through the next 18 weeks. I’m rooting for you to succeed and get that sub 3-25.
Your excitement to be racing in New York again is clear, and I love the all-in attitude. Just a suggestion; no B target for this one. If you’re all-in on 3-25 you’re much more likely to get it in my opinion.
Thanks! Unlike my last NYCM, my piriformis feels fine so that’s one less thing to worry about.
And, I like you suggestion re no B goal. All of my best marathon times have been when I had a single time goal in mind.