Hansons Marathon Technique: Run Your Quickest Marathon the Hansons Means

Very pleased with the training program!
In short, this training program WORKS! I think it would be difficult to say that one training program is better than another because we can’t have two programs at the same time and in the same conditions to compare with, but I was very pleased with the results of this program. I used it to train for my second marathon. The first one I ran in 3:19:40 and the second one in 2:58:33. Would I have done a similar performance, had I used a different training program, who knows? All I’m saying is that this program worked quite well.What you can expect from this program:- lot’s of miles, on an average of 50-60 mi weekly, 6 days a week. This, for me, meant a lot of early morning rises, pounding the pavement :)- a hard (tempo) run of up to 10 mi (+ warmup, cooldown) every week. It was the hardest run of the week.- a weekly interval (speed) run. This, for me, was the next hardest workout.- the longest run is 16 mi- many slower, quite relaxing runs in betweenHow the race went:- I never felt I “hit the wall”. It was rather a gradual decrease of energy with a boost during the finishing miles. The race was a slight positive split, first half at 6:45 pace/mi and second half at 6:51 pace/mi- I felt very well after the race. The next day I felt only slight muscle soreness, the second day barely anything and by the third day as good as nothing. I was very pleasantly surprised. Maybe it was training in the hills and running the race in a flat area; maybe it was the many training miles and the cumulative fatigue, I don’t know… But I remember feeling very sore after my first marathon but barely anything now.- As a note: I followed the training program “religiously”, only missing one speed training run because of travels. I feel this is very important, as the authors clearly state, so as to gain the cumulative fatigue effect.What I liked about the book and the program:- besides the training method, the book includes a lot of information regarding the science behind running, not missing any topic (that I could think of)- basically no injuries during the training or after the race- confidence for the race day, because of the many weekly miles, despite 16mi the longest runWhat was hard:- waking up so many early mornings 🙁 sometimes wishing I just could take the day off…- the weekly tempo run of 10mi at marathon pace was quite difficult, but no pain – no gain. In the end it for sure paid off. As a comfort though, the closer it got to the race day, the easier the training runs became as my body got more accustomed to the workouts.- Hanson’s marathon method includes a pacing chart (for all the different types of runs) but the most difficult decision was what marathon pace (or finishing time) I should choose. You first decide what finishing time you’d like and the program gives you the paces at which you should run all the different runs, in order to achieve that finishing time. I started with training at 6:40 marathon pace/mi. I could keep that for a 10 mi run, but could I keep it for 26 miles? As time went on I felt it was too much effort, so I settled for a 6:45-6:50. Since it was the first time I used the program, there was indeed some faith involved – that the authors know what they’re talking about. In the end my marathon pace was 6:50, so I can say that it was very close to my training / prediction time. I know that there are detailed recommendations in the book as to how you should pick your marathon pace, but it can still be a bit difficult to make that decision. From my experience, I would say that if a month before the race, you’re you’re pushing near 90-100% effort / or perhaps as in my case, you’re dreading the threshold run too much! realistically, you’re probably overdoing it and should choose a little slower pace.Good book! Enjoy your running!

Very Helpful For Marathon Prep
Prepping for my marathon right now and it hits on basically every topic I was curious about. It’s a lot of knowledge so I’d recommend reading well before you start marathon training to prepare.

Reçu en bon état et dans le temps. Intéressant pour planifier un marathon.

Lo consiglio vivamente sia a chi vuole correre la maratona per la prima volta sia a chi vuole migliorare il proprio tempo purchè si voglia/possa fare 5-6 uscite alla settimana.Il mio obiettivo è di correre in 3:40:00 fra 4-5 mesi e sono alla terza settimana di corse Easy tra 06:15/km e 05:50/km, con un totale di km superiore a quanto indicato perchè ho già un certo volume di km nelle gambe (per ora 70 km/settimana, 6 volte alla settimana).Il metodo dura 18 settimane e può essere reiterato per migliorarsi dopo ogni prestazione… quindi il libro ha validità “eterna”!