Below you will find a 20-week schedule for preparing for your first marathon. This schedule assumes that you really have not been running much or at all and so it is designed, not to make you the fastest, but a finisher!
You will find other schedules for higher levels of fitness and experience which intersperse other types of training such as "intervals", "Fartlek", "Hill work", etc., designed for runners looking for the next step up from just a finish.
This particular schedule if followed properly will get you from the start to the finish line on race day! I suggest that unless you have already been regularly running races at different distances or are a conditioned athlete in a different sport that you stick with this simple schedule to ensure success.
It is a fairly self-explanatory schedule running Monday thru Sunday. Ideally Sunday is the day when you will be doing your long distance. This allows you to peak your distance schedule to the race day (most marathons are run on Sunday). If your schedule requires that you run your long distance on a different day of the week that's alright, just rotate the days of the week forward or backwards accordingly to keep enough short distance and rest days in between your long runs.
On that note you may be tempted to think the rest days are unnecessary. Be careful! While under-preparation can spell disaster on race day, so can over-training. In fact, many times the rest is far more important than the work. No one wants to pull-up hurt in the middle of their first marathon because they over-stressed their legs by not getting enough rest. If you are really enjoying the running and are showing no signs of stress or injury, you can substitute a short run for the cross training day on the schedule.
The schedule is simply read: "3 m run" is a 3 mile run. If you're not sure about distances you can drive a route in your car ahead of time or use something like mapquest or yahoo maps or google maps to measure out different mileage courses. If you are fortunate enough to have some sort of portable gps unit, then you're just a little ahead of the game on this one.
BEGINNER SCHEDULE
WEEK MON TUES WEDS THUR FRI SAT SUN
1 rest 3 m run 3 m run 3 m run rest cross 6
2 rest 3 m run 3 m run 3 m run rest cross 7
3 rest 3 m run 4 m run 3 m run rest cross 5
4 rest 3 m run 4 m run 3 m run rest cross 9
5 rest 3 m run 5 m run 3 m run rest cross 10
6 rest 3 m run 5 m run 3 m run rest cross 7
7 rest 3 m run 6 m run 3 m run rest cross 12
8 rest 3 m run 6 m run 3 m run rest cross 13
9 rest 3 m run 7 m run 4 m run rest cross 10
10 rest 3 m run 7 m run 4 m run rest cross 15
11 rest 4 m run 8 m run 4 m run rest cross 16
12 rest 4 m run 8 m run 5 m run rest cross 12
13 rest 4 m run 9 m run 5 m run rest cross 18
14 rest 5 m run 9 m run 5 m run rest cross 14
15 rest 5 m run 9 m run 5 m run rest cross 20
16 rest 5 m run 8 m run 4 m run rest cross 13
17 rest 4 m run 6 m run 3 m run rest cross 9
18 rest 4 m run 6 m run 3 m run rest cross 8
19 rest 4 m run 6 m run 3 m run rest cross 8
20 rest 3 m run 4 m run 2 m run rest rest RACE!
If you are starting with less than twenty weeks to go, it can be done and you can still use this schedule. You will just have to remove the number of weeks from the schedule that you have missed.
PLEASE NOTE: If you are a beginner and are not actively running at this point you really should not cut this schedule down by more than two or three weeks.
If you do have to cut part of the schedule I would suggest maybe weeks 2 and 3. These are weeks that are low enough distances and yet removing them won't make for a huge jump to week 4, which would leave you pummeled for week 5!
Remember, this is a building schedule. Take things one step at a time. If you don't feel great after the first week, don't panic. If you need an extra day of recovery (rest). Not everyone responds to training the same so pay attention to your body. Stick to this plan and you will be at the finish!
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