A 16-week marathon plan for your first 42.2

This is a plan for finishing a marathon well, not for chasing a time. It assumes you already run three times a week, can run 8 km without stopping, and cover around 20 to 25 km in a normal week. If that is not you yet, spend six to eight weeks building to it first. Starting a marathon plan from zero is the most reliable way to get injured in week five.

You need four running days and about 30 minutes for one strength session. Long runs fall on Sunday. If your week is shaped differently, the order matters more than the day names: keep at least one easy day between the hard session and the long run.

The plan is four blocks of four weeks. In each of the first three, volume rises for three weeks and then drops by about a third. That fourth week is not a week off. It is where the work of the previous three is absorbed, and skipping it is how a good build turns into a sore Achilles.

The long run grows by 2 to 3 km a week and never jumps more than that. It peaks at 32 km in week 14, three weeks before the race, which is long enough to teach your legs and your stomach what hour three feels like and early enough to recover from fully.

The last block is different. Weeks 15 and 16 are the taper: volume drops to about 70% and race week is three short runs before the start, but the hard session stays in at a shorter length. Cutting intensity along with volume is the common taper mistake, and it leaves you flat on race day.

A first marathon is run by effort, not by a number from a calculator. Use the talk test. On easy days and long runs you should be able to hold a conversation. If you cannot, slow down, even if that means walking up hills. Most beginners run their easy days too fast and their hard days too slow, and end up with every run in the same tired middle.

To find a marathon pace for the race-pace sessions, run a 10 km or a half marathon around week 10. Your marathon pace is roughly your 10 km pace plus 40 to 50 seconds per km, or your half marathon pace plus 20 to 25. Use the slower end for a first race.

Wednesday's strength session is short and boring on purpose: two or three rounds of split squats, goblet squats, calf raises, a seated leg curl if you have a gym, and a plank. Strong calves and hips are what keep the long runs from turning into an injury list. Drop it to one round in deload weeks and skip it entirely in race week.

Monday and Friday are real rest. A walk is fine. Another run is not: the plan's volume is set with those days empty.

You will miss sessions. Work trips, colds and bad sleep happen to everyone. Missed one run: let it go, do not stack it onto the next day. Missed a week: repeat the last week you completed fully. Ill with a fever: no running until it has gone, then two easy days before the next hard session.

This is where a printed plan runs out. It cannot tell that you slept four hours, that your Thursday disappeared, or that your race moved by a week. Paceo builds the same structure as this plan, sized to the days you actually have, and moves sessions around your sleep, HRV and calendar each morning. If you want the full picture of how it plans a marathon, the marathon page walks through it.

Eat more carbohydrate for the two days before the race, around 8 g per kg of body weight a day, and cut back on fibre. Do not try anything new: new shoes, a new gel or a new breakfast on race morning are how good training goes to waste.

Start slower than feels right. The first 5 km should feel easy, almost frustratingly so. Take 30 to 60 g of carbohydrate an hour from the first half hour, practised on your long runs first, and drink to thirst. If you still feel good at 30 km, that is the moment to pick it up.