The big one!! Leading up to Manchester. We keep rolling with the simple theory of progressive overload. Train that little bit harder to get fitter.

So this plan goes from 150-160pts. No one on the team is training harder, a few match this, but this is the peak right now.

I’ll be honest. I’m still learning as a coach and I’m interested to see what limit I can push my runners. But whilst this looks busy on a spreadsheet we’re still not going much beyond 50 miles per week, perhaps peaking at 60.

So for a marathon plan, someone at your level, that still falls into my quality over quantity approach.

As with all my plans I start with race day and work backwards focusing on the key sessions. So 4 weeks out we do the biggest session of 21 miles, 16 at goal pace. Then each session proceeding that (every 2 weeks) is slightly easier. That’s how the plans get created.

Around that we try and keep things as consistent as possible. Monday’s easy run, which does stretch up to 50 mins some weeks. S&C, Monday & Wednesday. Tuesday club night, Thursday easy and then Friday or Saturday will vary.

What we are missing right now is additional races. We could put a half marathon in their in March, which you could either race fast or use as part of one of your marathon sessions. There’s 4 half marathon sessions in this plan, but we could add another if you fancied attempting a half marathon PB in March as well.

A 20 miler is also an option. I’m not a fan of running 20 miles at goal pace in the build up, simply because you’d need a week to recover from that fully, so it proves detrimental to the overall plan, but you could either use it as one of the long runs, or another of the marathon sessions.

I’ve started it on the 1st December so you can have a week off, or much lighter 7 days if you fancy. I would recommend that from experience. Or you can bank it, in case you do pick up an illness somewhere along the line and need an enforced week off.

The only thing I’ve not really factored in as I did before were the difference in the week you have the kids and don’t, but looking at the schedule most of the sessions can be done on the treadmill and we can always tweak them.

Based on the simple principles of fitness if you’re able to complete this plan or a minimum of 95% of the training, you should reach Manchester in better shape than you are right now. What time that will equate to, I think we’ll get a better understanding of that as the plan goes on.

I appreciate the target pace for the marathon right now on your dashboard equates to 3:08. To be honest Paul who ran 2:57, his predicted time on my model was 3:06, but he just went for it and trained at sub 3 pace from the word go and it worked out a treat. So you could take that gamble and see what happens.

I personally trained at 3:25 pace, when aiming for a 3:30 and in the end ran the first 16 or so miles at the pace I’d trained at and just about held on for my sub 3:30 goal, although I’d be quite poorly the week before and confident had I not been I would have been able to run closer to 3:25.

Conal in his 60s achieved his sub 3:30 goal on a similar plan. A young lad from Sweden I work hit his sub 3 running 2:57 in Stockholm. Then there was also a big PB for a lad called Jack, but he did need a 2nd attempt after the heat at Brighton wiped him out. But he clock a 3:11, 23 minute PB for him. I just wanted to link to a few of those to hopefully give you the confidence this method does work.

That’s all, let’s just keep working hard and see what happens. Delighted to have this opportunity to keep working with you as I get this real sense of determination and hopefully that is setting a great example for your kids as they grow up appreciate what you can achieve in life in your simply work hard.