16 weeks to NYC + 13 week to Chicago + 11 weeks to Berlin
Hello Runners!
Wow we have a lot to cover. Let’s get to it:
New York,
It’s TIME! You are now entering pre-season. Think of these next four weeks as the get in shape to get in shape period of your marathon season. During this time, you’ll introduce your body to all the paces and the weekly cadence you’ll use throughout training. Then, during the next 12 weeks of training, nothing will be new, only more.
For these first four preseason weeks, it’s important to appreciate how hard your body is working. Don’t worry about pace. Don’t fret if a workout feels harder than it should. The adaptations are happening regardless of pace. Though the big mileage and the fast times in later weeks will look more impressive on your watch, the adaptations your body is making now are just as significant. These miles will make those miles possible.
Now, while the work is new and unfamiliar, I want you to think of your own body as a baby—you’re a sponge, a marvel, very confused, often cranky, and changing so, so quickly. Whether this is your first marathon or your 50th, these first steps back into focused training are a period of major change, and they should always be baby steps. Be patient with yourself, feed and water yourself well, and when you get too whiney put yourself to bed with a kiss on the forehead.
This Wednesday we’ll elaborate on how far, how fast, and how often to run. These are personal questions, but we’ve got tips. Check out our new The noname Program marathon plan (going up right after this), or last year’s Coach + Coffey marathon plan for help thinking through your mileage.
Lastly, Coach + Coffey are currently leading The noname Program in-person training program. We have our own email list, and we meet for open practices in NYC. The roster is full, but the majority of practices are open. If you’d like to receive our emails with practice invitations, please send me your email and I’ll add you to the list.
Chicago,
Welcome to your recovery week and your last week of preseason! You’ve earned this rest! Our priorities this first microcycle have been building base mileage, getting your body used to the weekly cadence of efforts, and exploring a wide variety of paces via feel rather than assigned pace. After you take a small step back this week, you’ll be ready to move forward with longer long runs and more marathon-specific pace work.
This week, you should decrease your total mileage by 10-20% from last week. This is just enough of a break for your body to catch up on any bits of lingering microdamage and depletion while continuing to build fitness. Help your body out in this task by prioritizing recovery: sleep, eat, hydrate and layabout. In short, give it the tools and get out of the way! Do anything else that makes you feels good—massage, cryo, ice baths, cupping, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, etc—but commit to those basics first.
This may be the first time you’re really looking closely at mileage and figuring out percentages. That’s fine. The end of your first microcycle is a good time to get all your ducks in a row. Go through the last few pages of the The noname Program (to be posted right after this) or Coach + Coffey manual to get clear on your mileage for the rest of the season. Personally, I like pen and paper for this. If you prefer looking at your mileage in an app, I suggest v.02, where you can upload all your training from your watch or fill it in manually and see it laid out in a little calendar.
Berlin,
This week, you enter the building phase of your marathon season. That name is a bit of a misnomer, because every phase of the Marathon cycle includes building. But, think of it like this: The first 3-5 weeks of the season are base, aka preseason. That time is for introductions. By spending a little time at every pace and getting into a weekly cycle of long runs, speed runs, and easy runs, you communicate to your body: this is what we’re doing. Get ready for more of this. Your body knows how to respond. It makes the first wave of changes in your body—to oxygen carrying capacity, mitochondrial ATP production, bone density via osteocytes, and so much more. It’s wild stuff. This training changes you.
Now that you’ve met all the elements, you’re ready to build for these next eight weeks. The training will still be incremental. We’ll always limit which variables increase at any one time—one week you’ll run longer and slower, the next you’ll run shorter and faster. But, from here until you begin to taper on September 9th, you are building, you are climbing, you are becoming Marathoners.
This week, you’ll run the same number of total weekly miles that you did two weeks ago—between 70-80% of your peak weekly marathon mileage. If you’d like to take a closer look at mileage amounts, you can refer to last season’s Coach + Coffey manual or this season’s The noname Program manual (to be posted right after this). We shifted your weeks slightly to make training align across marathons, but we’ll always keep you up to date here on the upcoming week’s training.
If you’re running a fall Marathon other than NYC on 11/2, Chicago on 10/13, or Berlin on 9/29, choose the marathon closest to yours and slide into their training. Next week we’ll talk about when and how your marathon training will branch off.
Fall Marathoners, this week you will run 3-6 times:
These runs may be done on any days, with two caveats: 1) Run the Speed Run earlier in the week than the Long Run, and 2) if you’re running 3-4 days a week, try not to run them all back-to-back-to-back. Your efforts will be safer and more effective if separated by rest.
Speed Run: 20-30 minute Speedplay – 10-15x (1:00 “on,” 1:00 “off”)
Method:
1. Run 5-20 minutes of easy warmup running.
2. Do 5-10 optional minutes of dynamic warmups + strides.
3. NYC Marathoners, you will run 10 x (1:00 on, 1:00 off) for a total of 20:00
Chicago Marathoners, you will run 12 x (1:00 on, 1:00 off) for a total of 24:00
Berlin Marathoners, you will run 15 x (1:00 on, 1:00 off) for a total of 30:00
This workout is a “speedplay,” also known as a “fartlek.” That means that rather than the start/stop of intervals, these times signify a gentler faster/slower pace variation. There are no stops. No sprints. No extremes. It’s just one run, moving back and forth between faster and slower minutes like waves.
Berlin, you’ve done a shorter version of this once before, so you know what you’re doing. Just like last time, don’t think too hard about time. Explore, and see where your body’s lines of tension are—how fast can you run the “on” minutes and move back into easy run pace with the particular control of the long distance runner.
Chicago, you haven’t done this workout, but you ran a speedplay two week ago. New York, you’re brand new to everything! If either of you are wishing for tighter pace constraints, here you go: run the “on” minutes around 5k effort and the “off” minutes around the slower end of aerobic run pace—the pace you keep on easy runs. BUT, I want to encourage you to hide your time and just run hard, then easy, then hard. By releasing yourself from the constraint of pace, you’ll strengthen your relationship with your body, and with space and time disentangled from the numbers on a watch.
4. 5-20 minutes easy cooldown running + dynamic cooldown, just like at the start.
Aerobic Runs: 1-4 easy runs for aerobic development
Check out the Coach + Coffey Marathon Program for help choosing how many runs per week, how many miles to run, and how fast to run them.
Long Run: New York, 7 miles. Chicago, 9 miles. Berlin, 12 miles.
The most important coaching anyone can give you right now is to stay cool and hydrated. If you’re meeting with noname (yaaaay), we’ll have water stations waiting for you. If you’re running longer than the 7 miles we’ll be running, I urge you to do those BEFORE our 8am meetup. If you’re running alone, go as early as is safe. Refer to our summer running post for pointers.
If you have access to a treadmill, there’s no shame in using it. Your form will be very slightly different on the ‘mill, so to help counteract that you should vary the incline. Some treadmills have programs built in and some will require you to change the include manually. This will give your form very slight variety and prevent the sort of overuse injury that can come from a sudden move to the treadmill.
Stand on a streetcorner and chug a sportsdrink from a boedega. As long as your tummy can take it, drink at every stop. After you finish, have a snack within 20 minutes, a meal within 2 hours, and spend all day sipping on varied fluids and munching on electrolyte-rich fruits.
If you’re ahead of the game and already running longer, NYC may run up to 12 miles today, Chicago may go up to 10, and Berlin may go as far as 14.
See you Wednesday!
Coach + Coffey