47

The answer to everything may be 42, but the answer to "How do you run a marathon in 16 weeks time?" is 47. 47 training runs over the course of 16 weeks - the first of which I completed on Tuesday, this week - it was only a 3 miler, but it's checked off of the list - marked "complete". The schedule for the week is:

3 miles - Tuesday

5 miles - Thursday

8 miles - Sunday

It's a 4 week cycle - week 2 and 3 increase in distance over week 1 - week 4 is a flat week, typically dropping the mileage back to week 1 levels, but in 3 even segments. So the first week 4 will 5 miles all three days - the the next week 1 starts............boy, this looks complicated, fortunately it's printed out and sitting on my desk! Anyway, used it last year preparing for the 1/2 marathon and it worked, so, tried and tested! It's a formula available on the www.runnersworld.com web site - look for "TOOLS" then "SMART COACH" - honestly, I didn't make this up.

The 5 miler is just about as much as I can do after work - longer weekday runs have to happen in the morning pre-work - so up at 4;30am and hit the road - the long run on weekends builds to 20 miles, this is a Sunday morning staple for marathoners I think!