Cramming for a marathon

I feel like I need to document my training thoughts here...

I was mildly concerned that I might not have enough time to cram training for CIM (early December), so I went back to see what sort of abbreviated schedules I ran for my 2011-Rotterdam and 2010-London marathons.

A more proper training schedule would probably be about 20 weeks long, with a steady basing for several weeks, then 2-3 steps up with cut-backs before each step up. 14 days before the race, the plug would be pulled and I'd fall back into taper. Cramming is doing this in 10-15 weeks, removing the cut-back weeks and shortening the taper.

London was quite hilarious - Seriously, I only had like 8-9 weeks of training before that thing. I went from two straight months of down time from my stress fracture, to piddling with a handful of 30-35 mile/weeks, then rolled 8 weeks (6 of which were >60 miles), then tapered for 9 days. Now that was cramming! On race day, I felt fresh as could be and actually had a good race (2:39:53).

Here's what I ran leading into Oak Park 5k (16:16) and Rotterdam (2:38:46)...
(Again, garbage miles for a handful of weeks prior to touching a 50+ week)

Week / Miles
1 / 51
2 / 50
3 / 50
4 / 57
5 / 52
6 / 58
7 / 57
8 / 73
9 / 63
10 / 92
11 / 90 (7 day stretch of 106 miles)
12 / 90 (included 1:16:26 Cary 1/2 at the start of the week - totally on fumes though from all the miles)
13 / 42 (I shut it down mid-week to start recovery = 12 days of taper)
14 / 24 (includes 16:16 5k, 7 days before the marathon)
26.2 on Sunday, 4/10/11

14 weeks total. 7 weeks <60 miles, followed by 5 weeks >60 miles, followed by 12 days of taper. The 3 solid weeks >90 miles were key though... I topped out at 106 in a 7 day stretch, then went back down to the 90 range, then tapered.


All that said, here's what I'm thinking for my CIM training. This time, only a couple weeks prior to kick off with ~30 miles/week.

Week / Miles
1 / 50
2 / 50
3 / 65
4 / 65
5 / 75 (running 1/2 of Chicago Marathon at beginning of week)
6 / 75-80
7 / 60 (Oak Park FLW 10K at beginning of week)
8 / 90
9 / 90 (probably try to peak this week w/ 7 days >100)
10 / 90
11 / 45 (trial race somewhere in here?)
12 / 25
26.2 on Sunday 12/4/11

In the end, it can be done. Tried and true. I've proven it twice now, and with excellent results. It won't be easy. It'll require hill runs, and lots of tempo and speed workouts that I'm just starting now. And most importantly, I can't get injured (so far, I'm able to manage this hip/hamstring/glute with 1-2 massages a week, and tons of streching).

If I'm gonna gun for a PR at CIM, then I'm gonna have to be extremely strict with this training starting..... NOW.