The goal of all mileage-building programs is to reach a certain level on a specific date. You might simply want to increase your training base. More likely, you are aiming for an upcoming race like a half marathon or marathon. Either way, the path is rarely straight and flat. Everyone encounters obstacles. The question is, Can you train smart enough to avoid most of the pitfalls?
Early in my marathon career, I had trouble with this. I noticed a disturbing trend. After circling my race date on a calendar, I’d count back sixteen weeks and devise my training plan. It looked foolproof on paper, but rarely worked out that way. Time and again, I’d get sick or injured about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the program.
At first I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. After all, I was following the rule of gradual progression in training. Nothing in my plan looked blatantly stupid. The slope of my weekly miles inched upward at a modest rate.
After several years of unsatisfactory marathon results, I decided to create a different kind of plan. My weekly training mileage didn’t fit a straight line. Instead, once a month, it dipped. During that week, I decreased my mileage instead of continuing the gradual increase. I called this a “cutback week.”
I stopped short at the weekly long run, however. I figured the long run was so important I needed to do one every week, always a little longer than the previous one. So my cutback week was six days. I was afraid to extend it to seven days.
My new plan proved better than my old way, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the results. So I tried again. This time I cut back my long runs once a month as well. Now my cutback week was a full seven days long, meaning that once a month I had thirteen days of recovery between long runs.
The new approach worked great. After a full cutback week, I felt energized to begin the next month of marathon training. I didn’t get sick or injured as frequently as in the past. Soon I began telling my friends about cutback weeks, and writing about them in Runner’s World. I said that full cutback weeks especially helped runners deal with the “monster month” of marathon training just before the taper period (see “The Prerace Taper,” 5-8).
Building mileage and preparing for marathons aren’t easy. I would never claim that they are. But they are much more manageable when your plan includes regular cutback weeks.
Once a month, run 40 to 50 percent less: Let’s say you’re up to 16 miles a week after three weeks of your marathon training plan. Don’t increase to 18 or 20 miles on week four. Instead drop back to 8 to 12 miles. After this recovery week, you can jump up to 18 to 20 miles in week five.
Repeat the same pattern during weeks eight and twelve. By then you may be running twice as much as you were at the outset of your training. As your weekly mileage gets higher, the cutback weeks become even more important. They give both mind and body the recharge period necessary to keep going. Don’t ever underestimate the mental part.
Apply the same rule to your weekly long run: All marathon training programs focus on increasing the distance of your long run. This approach makes complete sense. Elite runners also need to consider their pace. Others don’t. For 99 percent of marathon runners, the key ingredient is building up time on the road.
In some programs you run just twice a week: a long run and an easy run. Other plans are more ambitious. Whichever you choose, I suggest you reduce the distance of your long run on weeks four, eight, and twelve. A 40 percent cutback works well. The final cutback on week twelve will leave you just one or two more long runs before you begin to taper. That’s perfect.
Try other cutback methods: While I’ve proposed that you cut back on your fourth, eighth, and twelfth weeks, the numbers aren’t special. It’s simply a system that fits neatly into a sixteen-week training plan. Feel free to experiment with other cutback plans—every sixth week, for example, or every third week, or even every other week. The only essential is that you give yourself a recovery period when you need it most.