With the proper rest behind you, now is the time to begin the distance phase of your training. During this time, you'll cut down on the fast running to just one official session per week. The emphasis of your workouts now shifts from speed to adding distance in your mid-week and weekend long run sessions.
Since you have already boosted your speed, your long runs will be faster by default, and you can continue to challenge your body by dialing your training intensity down and adding more time.
A Good Marathon Takes?Planning
With so much time to go until the fall, it's easy to skip the actual planning for your race. After all, it's months away and who knows what could happen between now and then, right? I can tell you that if you fail to plan, you won't be able to run at the goal pace required to have the finishing time you want.Don't get intimidated?get smart, and get to work!
Think long and hard about the time you want to run in five or six months, and start building your fitness now to match that benchmark. If you want to run a 3:30 marathon, you'll have to hold approximately 8-minute miles to reach your goal.
If you are in the speed phase, a 3:30 marathon equates to a 22:01 5K time (you can use this vDOT pacing website to identify race pace equivalents). Armed with this knowledge, you can start working towards that 5K time. This could include half-mile and mile repeats of (3:37/mile and 7:05/mile pace respectively).
You can download the Marathon Nation free race planner worksheet from Facebook to plot what your race should look like.