Because my husband is not running or training for the marathon with me, I decided to do my long runs during the week while he is at work.

I bought the Everything Running book by Art Liberman and Stephen Pribut, D.P.M., and Carlo De Vito several years ago and I am using the marathon plan included in chapter 17.   I looked at several in the months before I started training, and they either seemed too aggressive or too light.

Since I’ve been running for a little over 10 years now, I have a good base and have completed two half-marathons. This training seems to be just right, at least at this stage. My calves are a little tight, but other than that I feel good!

The book is really good for runners at all levels, even those just starting out (tagline- “From circling the block to completing a marathon, training and techniques to make you a better runner”). It goes in progression from no experience to touching on ultras (50+miles…on my bucket list for before I hit 60).

On top of the Buffalo Marathon at the end of May, I will be running the Grand Island Half-Marathon on May 5.

The training run that week is a 14 miler, so I will either keep going the extra 9/10ths I “need”…which let’s face it, will just look weird or call it a day (what I will do).

My husband is running it with me, and we both will have to convince the other to keep it slow and steady and not try to break any records.

Our real goal is to do well a few weeks later. The Grand Island Half is the first race we ever did about 8 years ago, with just 5 weeks to train.

We thought we had a good base (we didn’t…but also were none the wiser about what that meant, anyway).

The beauty of races though, is that for the most part the excitement and camaraderie propel you forward and help you run decently. We used Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 (here) program at that time, which worked really well for us.

The Everything Running book seems to be a good place to start with running in general since it covers race training (or not), nutrition, gear, and even a chapter devoted to women runners.

It was written in 2002 and updated in 2008 and 2012, so probably some of the advice has changed somewhat with new studies, etc. but I am finding it to be a good training plan thus far.

I am part of Amazon Prime and downloaded a different running book for free that coached one to do a marathon in four hours with four months of training and found some of the advice to go against what is normally given and quickly ditched that book and went back to Everything Running.

There are a lot of training plans online, and research can get you far. I also recommend not feeling bound to one if it stops providing training benefits…if the miles it wants you to run are ramping up too fast or the training is giving you injuries I would suggest finding one that incorporates more rest days or lower mileage.

I suffered a stress fracture on mile 11 of a 12-mile long run leading up to a half-marathon and it was not fun sitting on the sidelines cheering my husband on after having to drop out just two weeks before the race. Not to mention being out the $80 registration fee.

In that case, I think it was the shoes I was wearing, not the training program, but the end result was the same…an injury that kept me out of the race.

Get the book…

Art Liberman has a website marathontraining.com that covers a LOT! I have only just started to look at the resources available, but the link page he has to other running sites is extensive and valuable in and of itself.

Do you have a go-to training program or do you like to mix it up for variety?