I have decided to run in a marathon on Sept 17. I like the idea of using Hal Higdon's novice guide for training. However, I have been talking with another marathon training guy and he says that typically people run 5 times as much as they need to and limp through the race and have a horrible time. He has a program that uses heart rate to gauge how much to run, etc. His program has a pretty rigorous setup but you don't run nearly as far as Hal Higdon's.

My question is, do ya'll have a solution for the best way to train for a marathon? Is the Hal Higdon method overkill? Would using a heart rate monitoring racing program work better to my advantage?

tia

I used Higdon's novice plan as a guide for my first marathon, and adjusted it to fit my schedule. I don't think it's rigorous at all, and as long as you have a decent base, I think it's a fine program to use. It's an easy to follow, basic plan. IMO, if you at least follow the weekly long run progression he suggests (and run "enough" during the week), you'll do fine.

My best friend does lots of triathlons, is a 3:18 marathoner, and swears by heart-rate training. He doesn't measure distances at all. Basically runs certain amounts of time in certain heart-rate zones. I may give it a try for Houston 2012 training (assuming the world doesn't end on 5/21).

How far is his long run?

Seems like his program is more shorter/faster running? Where Hal would be more longer and slower runs.

I would opt for the slower/longer runs, less likely to get injured. The long run is the backbone to any marathon program. But I don't believe in running longer than 20 mi in training.

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He doesn't measure distances at all. Basically runs certain amounts of time in certain heart-rate zones.

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that's exactly how the heart-rate program is with this guy. I would just "tailor" it to fit my needs but I'm participating in a study with this heart-rate guy and can't vary too much from the schedule. But I need to decide now if I want to opt out of this study or not just so I won't drag this on to quit later...

Allegedly, this guy worked with Shaq to get him training and this is his website. I'm just still torn on what to do. If heart-rate monitoring is the best way to go, then I want to do that, but I really feel that I need to be running quite a bit to train for this marathon (more than what this heart-rate training program suggests).

Looking at a sample plan he sent me, his longest run is 170 minutes. But for most of his runs (non-speed ones) I think he stays in the 120-130 bpm range. I would have to run pretty slow to stay in that range. I'm not really sure what his pace is at that heart rate.

for the first month of this training program, it looks like my longest run is 45 minutes and I don't think any of the runs would go over 60 minutes during this training (however I would be able to do longer runs aside from this program in the next month or so).

The highest bpm that my program has for now is between 161 and 167. That's a little bit slow and maybe in the ~5 mph range for (at this point). But I don't stay in that heart-rate zone; it fluctuates.

I like the idea of the 170 minute run being the longest, do you have more of this schedule? I'd be curious to see it.