Hansons Marathon Method

On the 9th November it will be exactly 18 weeks until I run Barcelona Marathon again. My first goal was to try and finish in 3 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds or less. This would be quite a challenge seeing as my best marathon time stands at 4 hours, 27 minutes and 19 seconds which I got in Berlin 2012.

As I didn't get a place in London Marathon 2015 and this has always been my ultimate running goal I started looking to see what the 'best for age' qualifying time was for a woman. It's 3:45. So my challenge for Barcelona 2015 has now changed into trying to qualify for London 2016!

I am aware that this is quite a BIG challenge so I needed to find the right (and proven) training program for me. I have decided to follow the Hansons Marathon Method as many people have had a lot of success with this plan and knocked a lot of time of their previous PB's. I have never followed a training plan completely before and certainly never trained more than 3 times a week consistently. I also take photos and talk a lot while running marathons, taking my time at water stations, and going to the toilet A LOT. I figured if I work on all these things I actually do have a chance of at least a SUB 4, if not qualifying for London!

The Hansons Marathon Method (I'm following the beginner plan as the advanced looks way too hard) starts off slow but then gets pretty serious very quickly. It's written in miles so I've had to work out roughly what it is in kilometres.

Here's an example of week 11:-

Mon     Tue                           Wed   Thurs                   Fri       Sat       Sun

8k         6 x 1.5k Strength      Off     Tempo - 13k       9.5k     13k      25.5k

(easy)   (400m recovery)                 (5:15 pace)           (easy)  (easy)  (5:40 pace)                                                                                                               

I'll be writing a post every Sunday about how the week's training has gone. I think the hardest thing will be getting out of the door 6 times a week during the cold Danish winter!!

Wish me luck! I'm going to need it..........