Marathon Schedule Template in Excel

I can never seem to find a good marathon schedule when I need one.  So, I created one in Excel I thought I would share.  This is the schedule just for my last 8 weeks before running the Houston Marathon.  Not sure if Blogger can handle my attachment so I am linking it to my Lux Solutions website.  Here is the Marathon Schedule Template in Excel.

This is a fairly advanced schedule, but you can adjust the quantity downward or upward to meet your goals.

This is a fairly complex plan that puts the user on a very specific path to improved performance.  Numerous principles are at work here, including:

• Following the hard-easy principle. Every hard quality day is followed by a recovery day at about 20% slower than MPace.  You need enough recovery to make every hard day really count.
• Quality days include 4 specific training goals: (1) Long runs to build and maintain aerobic endurance over a relatively long distance.  (2) In some weeks, an MPace run is included in the long run to acclimate your body to your goal pace.(3) A long tempo run (Threshold Run) is included each week to stress your lactate threshold.  The length of these build over time.  My goal is to build up to 10 miles at tempo pace. (3) Interval work is included weekly to build VO² Max.  These are done as Yasso 800’s building up to 10 800’s with a 400 recover between each.  The pace is set in minutes to match my stretch marathon goal in hours.  So, if I want to be 3 hours, 10 minutes for the marathon, my 800’s are run at 3 minutes, 10 seconds each.
• The 3 systems being stressed on quality days: Aerobic endurance, lactate threshold, and VO² Max are present each week, but the same system in never stressed closer than 4 days apart to give your body time to adapt.
• There is a 3 week cycle with an easier week is thrown in to help the body recover from the build up of the previous 3 weeks and prepare you for the next cycle.  In this case, this is week 4.  Since this schedule is only 8 weeks with a 3 week taper.
• The 3 week taper cuts about 20% of volume each week but the taper maintains intensity while reducing volume.