16 weeks · distance-based
A marathon block written in kilometres, built at the aggressive end of what a fit beginner can absorb. Peak 66 km a week. Real quality work. Marathon pace trained, not hoped for.
Same seven days for sixteen weeks
6 kmEasy
Start the week moving · + strides most weeks
6 kmQuality · + 4 strides
Hills → threshold → marathon pace
Rest + strengthStrength session
7 kmMedium-long
The session that separates this plan from a novice one
Rest + strengthStrength session
10 kmLong run
Capped at 3 hours regardless of km
5 kmRecovery
Slowest run of the week. Genuinely.
The Thursday medium-long run is the most important addition here. It's Pfitzinger's signature session and it's what makes this a marathon plan rather than a long-run-plus-filler plan. It builds mitochondrial density and capillary growth without the recovery cost of a second long run, and it's the main reason this block peaks at 66 km instead of 45.
The week opening with a run means four run days in a row — Saturday long, Sunday recovery, Monday easy, Tuesday quality. That's deliberate and safe, because Sunday and Monday are the two easiest runs of the week, and the mid-week rest now lands on Wednesday, straight after the quality day, which is exactly where you want it.
One quality day, four easy days. That ratio is Patrick Sang's, and it's not up for improvement. The failure mode of every ambitious amateur is that the easy days creep up to medium and the hard day gets softer, until you're running five identical medium runs and plateauing for years.
Long runs are given in km, but stop at 3 hours whatever the distance says. Maximum aerobic adaptation from a long run lands around 2.5–3 hours; past that you add recovery cost and injury risk without much return. If 30 km takes you longer than 3 hours, run 3 hours. The number in the table is the goal, not the instruction.
Pick a target row · recalibrate after the week-8 test
Every run in this plan has both a distance and a pace band. Find the marathon time you're aiming at, and read across. Until the week-8 10K test gives you real data, aim at the row you think is plausible and err one row slower.
| Goal marathon | Marathon pace MP | Easy E | Threshold T | Predicted 10K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:30 | 6:24 /km | 7:25–8:05 | 6:05 | 57:00 |
| 4:00 | 5:41 /km | 6:40–7:20 | 5:22 | 51:00 |
| 3:45 | 5:20 /km | 6:20–7:00 | 5:02 | 47:30 |
| 3:30 | 4:59 /km | 6:00–6:40 | 4:42 | 44:30 |
| 3:15 | 4:37 /km | 5:35–6:15 | 4:20 | 41:15 |
| 3:00 | 4:16 /km | 5:15–5:55 | 4:00 | 38:00 |
Take your 10K time and multiply by 4.7. A 45:00 10K predicts 3:32; a 40:00 predicts 3:08.
Then add 5–10% back on, because that formula assumes marathon-specific endurance you won't have yet in your first block. A 45:00 10K realistically means 3:40–3:55 on the day. Set your MP from the realistic number, not the predicted one. Training at a pace your endurance can't support is how first marathons blow up at 32 km.
The pace band tells you what to run. The talk test tells you whether today is a day where that band is honest. On easy runs you should be able to say a full sentence out loud; if you can't, the pace is wrong for today regardless of what the plan says — heat, sleep and accumulated fatigue all move it. Distance is non-negotiable, pace is a target, effort is the veto.
Kilometres per week · three build weeks, one down week
Faded bars are down weeks · hover any bar for its total
Every run, every week, in kilometres
Numbers are kilometres. Warm-up and cool-down are included in the quality-day figure. Unless a cell says otherwise, the run is easy throughout. Wednesday and Friday are always rest.
| Wk | Mon | Tue — quality | Thu — med-long | Sat — long | Sun | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | 6 · + 4 strides | 7 | 10 | 5 | 34 |
| 2 | 6 | 7 · + 6 strides | 8 | 12 | 5 | 38 |
| 3 | 7 | 7 · hills 6×45s | 9 | 14 | 5 | 42 |
| 4 | 4 | 5 · + 4 strides | 7 | 11 | 3 | 30 |
No threshold work yet. The job of block 1 is to absorb five runs a week and a Thursday medium-long without accumulating damage. If anything hurts in these four weeks, the rest of the plan is not going to fix it.
| Wk | Mon | Tue — quality | Thu — med-long | Sat — long | Sun | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 6 | 8 · hills 8×45s | 9 | 16 | 5 | 44 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 · T 2×8 min | 10 | 18 | 5 | 48 |
| 7 | 8 | 8 · T 2×10 min | 10 | 21 | 5 | 52 |
| 8 | 6 | 6 · easy | 8 | 14 · 10K TEST | 4 | 38 |
Week 8 is the calibration point of the whole block. Saturday replaces the long run with a 10 km time trial or, better, an actual 10 km race: 3 km warm-up, 10 km all out and evenly paced, 1 km cool-down. Every pace from week 9 onward comes off this number. Keep Tuesday and Thursday genuinely easy that week so the result measures your fitness rather than your fatigue.
| Wk | Mon | Tue — quality | Thu — med-long | Sat — long | Sun | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 7 | 9 · T 3×8 min | 11 | 23 · last 5 MP | 5 | 55 |
| 10 | 8 | 9 · T 20 min cont. | 12 | 26 | 5 | 60 |
| 11 | 9 | 9 · MP 4×2 km | 13 | 28 · last 6 MP | 5 | 64 |
| 12 | 6 | 7 · T 2×8 min | 10 | 20 | 3 | 46 |
This is where the plan stops being generic endurance work and starts being marathon training. Marathon pace appears in two places at once — as its own session on Tuesday, and as a finish to the long run on Saturday. Running MP on already-tired legs is the specific adaptation the race demands, and it's the thing most first-timers have never practised.
| Wk | Mon | Tue — quality | Thu — med-long | Sat — long | Sun | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | 9 | 9 · MP 3×3 km | 13 | 30 · last 8 MP | 5 | 66 |
| 14 | 6 | 8 · T 2×10 min | 10 | 24 · last 5 MP | 4 | 52 |
| 15 | 4 | 7 · MP 3×2 km | 8 | 16 | 3 | 38 |
| 16 | 8 · + 4 strides | 6 · easy | 5 | 4 · shakeout | · RACE | 23 + 42.2 |
Week 13 is the hardest week of your life so far and week 14 starts giving it back. The taper is not a reward and it is not optional — the fitness is built by the end of week 13, and the last three weeks exist purely to shed fatigue. You will feel sluggish, heavy and undertrained through weeks 15 and 16. That is what a working taper feels like. It is not a signal to add anything.
Week 16: Monday 8 km easy with 4 strides, Tuesday 6 km easy, Wednesday rest, Thursday 5 km easy, Friday rest, Saturday 4 km shakeout, Sunday race.
Every quality session, spelled out · Tuesdays, except race-week Monday
All of them are built the same way: 2–3 km warm-up → the work → 1–2 km cool-down. Recovery between blocks is easy jogging, not standing still. The warm-up and cool-down are inside the distance shown in the table.
| Wk | Session | The work | Why it's there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Strides | 4–6 × 20s fast and relaxed, 60s walk between | Mechanics and leg speed. Too short to fatigue you. |
| 3 | Hills | 6 × 45s uphill hard , 4–6% grade, walk down | Strength at lower impact cost than flat speed. Always comes first. |
| 5 | Hills | 8 × 45s uphill hard , walk down | Same, more of it. |
| 6 | Threshold | 2 × 8 min at T , 3 min easy jog between | First real lactate work. Controlled and unpleasant, not desperate. |
| 7 | Threshold | 2 × 10 min at T , 3 min between | Extending time at threshold. |
| 9 | Threshold | 3 × 8 min at T , 2 min between | 24 minutes of threshold — a real dose. |
| 10 | Threshold | 20 min continuous at T | Unbroken. Harder mentally than 3×8, same physiology. |
| 11 | Marathon pace | 4 × 2 km at MP , 2 min easy between | Grooving race pace so it feels automatic. |
| 12 | Threshold | 2 × 8 min at T — down week | Maintenance, not development. |
| 13 | Marathon pace | 3 × 3 km at MP , 3 min easy between | 9 km at race pace mid-week, before a 30 km Saturday. |
| 14 | Threshold | 2 × 10 min at T | Last hard session. Sharpness, not fitness. |
| 15 | Marathon pace | 3 × 2 km at MP | Rehearsal. Should feel easy — you're rested. |
| 16 | Strides | 4 × 20s | Keeping the legs awake. Nothing more. |
Once Tuesday gets hard, Wednesday and Thursday want to creep up too — you feel fit, and easy starts to feel insulting. Four easy runs and one hard one beats five medium ones by a distance. Elite Kenyan marathoners run roughly 80% of their kilometres below marathon pace. The analysis of 119,000 marathon runners found easy-pace volume is the single strongest thing separating fast marathoners from average ones — the fastest run ~80% easy, everyone else 50–60%.
Only if you can't clear the gate · 4 weeks · 4 runs
| Wk | Mon | Tue | Wed | Sat — long | Sun | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 5 | — | 5 | 7 | 3 | 20 |
| B | 6 | — | 6 | 9 | 3 | 24 |
| C | 6 | 5 | 6 | 11 | — | 28 |
| D | 5 | — | 5 | 9 | 3 | 22 |
All of it easy. Run/walk it if you need to — 8 minutes running, 1 walking, and the walk counts toward the distance. At the end of week D, run 8 km continuously. If it's conversational, start week 1. If it isn't, repeat weeks C and D. Nothing is lost by taking four extra weeks; a lot is lost by breaking in week 6.