Philly Training Plans

There are 23 21 weeks left before the Philadelphia Marathon, Sunday, November 22nd. My goal is to beat last year's time of 3:29:43. If I do that I qualify for Boston in the spring. If I do qualify I plan on running it. This means I need my average pace to be 8 minute miles. Generally, I run faster than that, according to my Nike Plus my average pace is 7:44 per mile. But my longest run this spring has been 16 miles so I need to build up my endurance without losing much speed. I generally run 5-6 miles a day during the week (say 4 out of five days) and do a longer run on the weekend, usually Sunday morning.

Based on that here are my weekly goals for Sunday's leading up to Philly:

Date          Distance
7/5                 10 mi.
7/12               12 mi.
7/19               10 mi.
7/26               14 mi.

8/2                 10 mi.
8/9                 16 mi.
8/16               10 mi.
8/23               18 mi.
8/30               10 mi.

9/6                 20 mi.
9/13                 8 mi. (recovery)
9/20               14 mi.
9/27               10 mi.

10/4               16 mi.
10/11             10 mi.
10/18             18 mi.
10/25             10 mi.

11/1                20 mi.
11/8                  8 mi. (taper)
11/15              10 mi. (taper)
11/22              26.2    Philly!