Marathon Training and My Obsession With Hal Higdon - 35ish weeks to go

I’ve never had a running coach. However, I have been using Hal Higdon’s training plans for well over a decade so I guess you could consider him a bit of a “virtual” coach to me. When I first saw a picture of him, he reminded me of a very wise, very in shape, cool grandfather. 

He’s a legend in the running world, competing in the Olympic Trials multiple times, coming in 5th at the Boston Marathon in 1964, and is a contributing editor for Runner’s World. He’s currently 96 years old!

His marathon, half marathon, 15k, 10k and 5k plans are available for free on his website and he provides extensive explanations and tips for how to complete them. For extra guidance, he offers a paid app (Hal+), that yields you even further perks and assistance.

I stumbled upon his Novice Half Marathon plan when I was training for my very first half in 2008, the Greenville Spinx Half (Greenville, SC), when I was a sophomore in college. I remember printing the guide out and taping it to my dorm room wall and marking off each day. At the time, the thought of building my way up to TEN MILES as requested for week 11 was impossible. But clearly, his guide and my persistence on following his plan meant I successfully finished that first half marathon with a time of 2:29:25.

So over the years, I’ve continued to use his training plans, sometimes jumping to Intermediate but never quite attempting the Advanced plans.

For the Asheville Marathon that is coming up rather quickly (March 15th), I’m using his Intermediate 1 marathon plan. I’m currently on week 11 out of 18. 

His plans typically have the same structure, some with more speed work outs, interval trainings, cross training, hills, and tempo runs. Some are 12 weeks long, others are 18. 

The one I am using has 5 days of running, one day of cross training, and one day of rest. I’ll admit that I’m almost always turning that one day of cross training into a rest day. I work a pretty physical job that requires me to be on my feet all day and lifting heavy things constantly so I consider work a cross training activity. And sometimes I play disc golf or pickleball and persistently walk my dog as well. And in the winter, like right now, I also cautiously snowboard as often as the weather permits. So that all counts. In my opinion. 

Each week, on Sunday, has a “long run” with 8 miles on week 1, building up to 20 on week 13 and week 15. The Tuesday through Thursday runs typically range from 3 miles to 8 miles.

This structure tends to work for me and as long as I complete the majority of the runs, I find that I’m pretty prepared and comfortable on race day.

I’ll admit that I think I’ve been a little slack the past 11 weeks, often missing one or two training runs a week. I always get the long run in, even if it’s a little late. Balancing life and a heavy training load is pretty tough and I know I need to give myself a little more grace but in the back of my head I know that I can’t skimp out too much on the plan or it will come back to bite me on race day. Hopefully these last 7 weeks I can make a strong push to knock em all out!

Taken during a 17 mile run out at Bent Creek Experimental Forest January ‘25