177. How to Choose the Right Marathon Training Plan with Coach Whitney

Find a plan that's going to meet you kind of where you're at. I mean, if you're running right now in your longest run of the week is four miles, maybe you need to find a plan that starts with the long run at maybe six, maybe eight mile long runs. I would start with a six, but you don't want to find something. If your longest run is four miles, that's going to be 12 miles the first week. That's just not going to be a feasible plan. You're not going to be able to do that without getting hurt, without getting burnt out, without just throwing in the towel and saying, forget it. I can't do it. Are you constantly worried about getting injured or you don't know how to get faster as a runner and you want to continue to run for stress relief, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome to Healthy Runner, the only place that provides you with training tips, injury recovery and prevention tools with actionable strategies by experts in the running industry so you can develop a stronger running body and feel confident that you can overcome any obstacle as a runner. I'm your host, Dr. Dwayne Scotty, avid runner, running physical therapist and coach, educator, founder of Spark Healthy Runner, where we help dedicated runners get stronger, run faster and enjoy lifelong injury free running with the perfect online running coach, even if you've been told to stop running with an injury or you think coaching is just for fast runners. Learn more about our signature coaching program at learn.sparkhealthyrunner.com. Every week on the show, we coach you to grow as a runner, just like the process of building a strong, durable home that will last a lifetime, requiring little maintenance. The design and planning is your mindset. The foundation is your strength training. The framing is your run plan. The electrical and plumbing is your nutrition. The insulation, drywall and flooring is your recovery. The landscaping and exterior is your race strategy. If you master the six parts of growing as a runner, your running will be strong and last long, hitting PRs well into your 40s, 50s and beyond. Every week we help a runner just like you build their dream home. I'm your host, Dr. Duane Scotty. Welcome to the Healthy Runner podcast. This episode is powered by you can fuel smarter during a run with the best no sugar energy gel on the market, delivering up to 75 minutes plus of steady energy to power your best running performance. If you've been listening to this podcast and you know how important it is to fuel your body for your runs, especially those long runs and races. And one of the biggest questions we get from our athletes is, what should I take with me during a run in order to get that fuel in? 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So now that you're a part of our Healthy Runner community, you will get 20% off all your orders using the special link I have in the show notes. Just go to ucan.co that's dot co not com forward slash healthy runner and use the code healthy runner during checkout when placing your order to get your 20% off, go ahead and give you can energy gel a try for your next long run. Trust me, you won't regret it. Have you wondered when you should start your marathon plan ever wondered what the difference is between all the marathon training plans out there on the internet? Do you want to know if you could get away with the free marathon training plan for beginners that you just downloaded after a quick Google search? We are unpacking all of the variables that you need to consider when choosing your marathon training plan. We will also talk you through the different types of marathon training plans available to you so you know which is best for you. Welcome to episode 177 on the healthy runner podcast where we help you get stronger, run faster and enjoy lifelong injury free running. And we have coach Whitney back on the show to share all of her marathon knowledge. Welcome back coach. Thanks for having me. It's always fun to be on this podcast and talk about running. It's my favorite thing. Absolutely. That's what we love to do, right? So yeah, catch us up. What have you been up to going on in your world? I know what you have run recently, but some of our listeners may not be following you on social media and don't know. So kind of catch us up on what you've been up to these past couple months. So I think the last time I was on was in February, maybe early March right after I ran the Mesa Marathon in Mesa, Arizona. And that was fantastic. Like, you know, all the stars aligned for that race for me. So it was a great race. I recently actually last weekend came back from Cincinnati. And I raced the three way with extra cheese challenge as part of the flying pig marathon weekend. So that meant Friday night I ran a one mile race. Then Saturday morning I did a 10k about an hour later. There was a 5k, which I did with my mom, which is super fun. And then Sunday morning, I ran a half marathon. And if you saw anything about the flying pig weekend, you know that there were a thunder, there was a huge thunderstorm Sunday morning, which was the day that they did the half in the full. And it rained so hard that you couldn't see like two feet in front of you. You're running, we were running through puddles, puddles, the streets were flooded almost like halfway up to my knee. Like it was just insane, lightning everywhere. Now, people have debated back and forth whether or not they should have canceled the race, postponed the race. Maybe they're what's lightning. That's kind of scary. But you know, they did say at the start, we've watched the forecast. Yes, it's going to hit us. It's going to be big. It's going to be quick. It's going to blow through. Run at your own risk. Apparently, there was a shelter in place issued at some point that I totally missed and just kept running. But you know, here we are. I'm fine. I finished. I actually had a really fantastic race that day. P. R. My half marathon by seven minutes, which is still crazy to me. I don't know really how I did that. But the whole weekend was just I did the whole weekend with my mom just the two of us in Cincinnati. It was so much fun. So that's what I've been doing. Right now I am in base training for the next eight weeks, I believe. July 17th is day one of New York City Marathon training for me. So I will be running that on November 5th this year. So if you guys want to follow me on the day, I will post my link at some point in the future. Yeah, now we're excited to see you do your first New York City and I know we have a bunch of athletes running New York as well. And yeah, I'll definitely be following your journey for sure. And yeah, congratulations to you because like a seven minute PR is like pretty much unheard of in like half marathon world. So and and despite like the weather is truly like amazing remarkable. And the fact that you did also like run a PR 10 K the day before you did a one mile or like that just seems like nuts to me. But it definitely speaks to and I think this is probably a valuable lesson for everyone listening is, you know, we can't just look at our training in a silo or one training cycle and like today's topic, we're going to talk about like choosing the right marathon training plan for you. And I think it's, you know, a good point to not put so much stock in the 16 weeks like before your race or like that specific training cycle. But it's the body of work, right? Like you've been consistently running consistently strength training for years since I've known you. And I think it's all of those years of work that really led to right like the performances that we saw in Cincinnati there. So yeah, kudos to you though, because it's been a it's been a long time that you've been working at it, right? Just like all of us in our journey, we're trying to improve, right? We're trying to get faster and, you know, stay healthy along the way. And actually, would you mind sharing the little bit of a niggle or pain that you did have back in, I guess what that was probably January, February, February, you had sent me a text, do you mind sharing what you were struggling with there? Yeah, so my 20 mile or right before the Mesa Marathon, I ended up with COVID three weeks before the race. So I had to push my 20 mile or a little closer to race day than ideal, which, you know, things happen. So after that race, my knee kind of felt my left knee felt weak. I don't know if that's the right term. It wasn't exactly painful that day. Later on, that afternoon, it said started to get kind of achy right on the outside of my knee, right in the middle, like you bend your knee. It's right there on the outside, the middle of your knee, 90 degree angle. I text Wayne, I was like, Oh, what is happening? Like my race is so soon. I nervous like all this stuff. So I started doing some IT band work to strengthen the IT band. My plute is very weak. My glute mead is very weak. My hip flexor is very weak. All of that kind of led to, you know, irritation of the IT band for myself. Mesa, if you're not familiar with that race is all downhill. There's maybe like this much little teeny tiny bit of uphill, like a quarter mile or something. So downhill tends to be a little harder on the IT band. In general, but I was going in a little sore mile for of that race. It really started to bother me. I pushed through the whole race, you know, I was like, I know what it is. I know I'm not actually hurt. It's just irritation, inflammation, whatever. So I kept running. Totally did the race with sore after that for a few weeks, battled back and forth. Dwayne and I messaged back and forth. Hey, this is where the pain is. He added some new workouts. And I've been progressing my IT band strength training over the past, I don't even know what February is, three months ago, yeah, it's actually totally gone away. So I mean, I don't have a superstitious, but fingers crossed, knock on wood, whatever I need to do that it's going to stay that way. I am continuing to once a week, make sure that I'm doing my IT band work to make sure that I'm strengthening and maintaining that strength. This is my off seas, well, my base building face. So I'm doing a lot more strength training right now than I typically do during a training cycle. So I'm making sure that I am getting my glute. I'm getting all of the muscles that are going to be strengthening and supporting my knee, my IT band, all of that so that I can stay healthy and pain free. So yeah. Yeah, no, thanks for sharing because I think, you know, it is this fine balance that we have, right? As we're trying to improve as runners and as we're, you know, trying to get faster, like I mentioned in certain races, like, yes, like once you get to the point where you have a solid foundation, you've done half marathons for you've done some marathons before, you know, you do go into this kind of advanced, you know, we'll call it an air quotes here training cycle where we need to do specific speed work. We need to add mileage, right? And it is this balance that we have of like, how much can we add stress to the body without the body breaking down, right? And creating this injury. And I think a couple of key points that I heard from you was that, you know, you identified that you had the pain initially, even though it can be scary, you knew not to totally freak out and think like, Oh my goodness, I just need to like stop running for a week and just like, you know, let it calm down and then go back to running like you knew, obviously from being in our community and all of the episodes, you've listened to that, you know, we don't necessarily need to stop running. But then you also were proactive in taking like the necessary action steps, right? So yes, you need to be an active participant in your recovery process. So whether it's a minor injury, major injury, you do need to seek out like, what is it exactly that you need to do? And then like implement it and like do it. And you did like I gave you the specific exercises. And you know, we followed up and made sure that you are continuing to improve. And I'm just glad that you didn't have to worry about your IT band during all of the flying pig fiasco. There was like enough going on with weather and all the races. You didn't need to worry about that. So I was very happy to hear that you finished it feeling healthy, strong. And I think it's a good reminder that, you know, even though we are run coaches and, you know, this actually just happened to be this morning during my run. So the time of this recording, I am in my literal peak week of my half marathon training cycle. Last week was the first week that I hit 45 miles only for the second time ever in my life. And actually last year I might have only done 44 tell you truth. So 45 miles. And then this week I have 46 on the docket. And I'm doing hard interval running on the track. I'm doing the longest long runs that I've ever done for half marathon training, just because I have 25 something right like half marathons under my belt. So now I have this like beast that has been built over the winter, where I'm really going with the strategy of, you know, doing these longer long runs for half marathon training, right? To just build up more of that solid like aerobic capacity and base. But at the same time, again, my body has never done this before. So we do reach a point at which it's like the maximum potential our tissues can handle before we start feeling a little pain. And like this morning, I started feeling very minor. It kills pain. Like maybe I'd give it a one out of 10. But it was like the classic stiff, it feels stiff. But I knew exactly what it was is and I've had some mild Achilles soreness last year around the same time period when I was really like pushing the limits a little bit. But like, again, I knew the strategies what to do. I knew the exact like pain relieving isometric exercise. Like I would get my clients with Achilles pain. And I really took you like yesterday hit the track today, I really modified and took my easy run even easier. It was like a game to play like how slow can I run this while maintaining proper form. And then I did alter my heel drop in the shoe that I ran right. So like I took action to like implement certain things. But it's also I think a nice reminder for people listening to like, Hey, you know, Coach Whitney, Coach Dwayne, like we're not like invincible. Like it's not like we never ever experience, you know, that we never have pain or problems like we can relate to exactly what you guys are going through and struggling with. And I think, you know, we all learn through our lessons, but yeah, we're not invincible. But the key is that we don't need to like stop running. And we just need to like implement certain little strategies that will help, you know, be able to kind of take us take us to the promised land, so to speak, right? And and hit our running goals. So thanks for sharing that. And I guess really today's topic I really wanted to kind of get into because we get a lot of questions about this when people like want to jump in our coaching program, or in our, you know, healthy runner Facebook community, people will kind of ask about different like marathon training plans. And then really, I guess, I almost wanted to do this as like a PSA. Because most of the folks that do wind up getting in our program and working with one of the coaches has done, you know, some of these plans in the path. So whether it was in, you know, online training plan, they downloaded, you know, they were following the marathon training plan on their garment on their Nike watch on the, you know, their Apple Watch or whatever program they got. And they were like, I'm going to do this plan. And a lot of times, unfortunately, I do see a lot of running injuries start because of training errors, because someone essentially selected the wrong plan for like what their body was capable of. And like what their current running fitness and health was. So I thought this would be a nice topic for those, especially now at the time of this recording, it's kind of every everyone's kind of starting to think about and, you know, register for fall marathons. So I thought, you know, as people get registered, as they start thinking about, Hey, what are my fall, you know, marathon goals to really consider some specific kind of principles considerations that you need to look for when, you know, really choosing the right marathon training plan for you. You know, what do you think are some like general things that, you know, we should look for when, you know, considering marathon training plans. So there is so much that can that needs to go through your mind that you need to think about before you actually select a plan. No, don't go to Google and say, New York City Marathon training plan and just print the first thing that you find because that's not going to work for you. There are so many factors that go into picking the right one. So first, you need to decide which race you're doing. What marathon are you doing? When is it? You need to put that on the calendar. The easiest way to make sure that you are getting the plan that's going to be right for you that's going to fit, fill all your bot, check all the boxes, fill all the necessary things on your list is to work with a coach to hire a certified running coach because that's their job. Their job is to make sure it works for you. Now, that is not necessarily going to be feasible for all runners. There are a lot of you out there listening that are not ready to make that commitment that are not wanting to or able to spend the money right now to do that or don't really have the time to put in to working with a coach to meet with them on a regular basis and all of that. And that is absolutely fine. Absolutely fine. We are going to walk you through how you can figure out what plans are going to work for you. But you're always welcome to reach out to us and we would love to work with you. So I'm glad. Hold on one second. Sorry, I just need to jump in there because I'm glad that you brought that up because that was me, right? Like when I ran my first marathon, let's see, it was five years. So I guess that would have been six years ago. So actually, yeah, in 2017, when I graduated the PhD and I tended that graduation, we just attended graduation last week and I had a dawn, my little cap and gown. So we think about it and the extreme amount of money I paid for that thing. But I get to wear it every year and watch my students graduate. So it's well worth the investment. But I really think about at that time, like, I would have definitely not have gotten a coach because I honestly was, I didn't know what I didn't know, right? And I wasn't ready for that level of commitment. So I can totally relate and understand like where people may be at right now. But I love that you brought that up because obviously we're going to be somewhat biased because we see the results that, you know, all of our athletes get when they do have that guidance of coaching. But I think a lot of the tips that you're going to share today are also going to be super helpful for those that just aren't ready, whether from a mental standpoint, financial standpoint, or just, you know, they have no interest in coaching at all. I think these tips would be super kind of helpful for them. And I guess, you know, my first question to you is like, when should I start like my marathon plan? Like, how many weeks, you know, should a marathon training plan really be? Now you should start now, honestly, whether you're running in 16 weeks or a year, you should start now, honestly. So depending upon like someone's listening to this, you know, and they're like thinking about doing a marathon in like, you know, five years, they should start now, right? Because they want to think about No, in all seriousness, a marathon training cycle, the specific training for a marathon is about 16 weeks give or take. Some people can get away with shorter plans. Some people need longer plans. But typically 16 weeks is what we we see. That is not including your base building phase. That is not including the time I typically recommend about 16 weeks for base building four months to build up your mileage to work in some speed work to lengthen your long runs to get your body used to running the stresses of running the strength training you're going to need to do all of the things that are going to be required. When you officially start your marathon training cycle, you need to have the base built for that. So if you're thinking, okay, that's a lot of weeks. Yeah, that's really like eight months of training because you need your base and you need your official training cycle. Now, some people can get away with not necessarily having that full four months of base building because they're coming off of another training cycle or they've been running recreationally, maybe 20 25 miles a week for the past six months just for funsies with friends. And now they're thinking about signing up for a marathon in 18 weeks, 20 weeks from now. They have, they can do two, three weeks of base built base building before they jump into training, because they've already had that time and the mileage built up. So I recommend 16 weeks for a official training, but making sure that you've got a steady base, a sturdy base built. Yeah, so awesome. Amazing point because if you just like found out that, you know, you got it in New York, or you're running for charity in New York, or you know, you are, you know, signed up for Disney, or you got in Chicago, you just like put your name in the lottery and you're like, yeah, I got in Chicago and you're like, I don't need to start marathon training and start running until, you know, the summer and you haven't been running consistently. I agree with you whole heartedly, like you really don't have any business running a marathon in 16 weeks. Like we, we firmly do not encourage you to go couch to marathon essentially, right? And you know, think about doing a marathon without having like you said that eight months minimum. And honestly, for most runners, you know, we highly recommend honestly a solid year of running under your belt, like get wins under your belt at the 5k 10k half marathon before you go ahead and, you know, take a deep dive in the pool for marathon training. So I love that you've brought that up that it isn't only that 16 weeks, but it's what have you been doing before that. So thank you for for bringing that out because I think it's just such an important, important point. And it's probably the most important factor at getting you to the start line and not having your IT band blow up at, you know, mile 16 of your long run six weeks out, eight weeks out from your race, right? Like that is the single most important variable. I would imagine that you're going to bring up today is just like, what has your running been before you even started your marathon training plan? Yes, absolutely. Another thing to consider is you need to look at the course. Is it an out and back? Meaning you're going to run from the start line to a turnaround point and come back and finish at the start line finish line. Is it somewhere where they're going to you have to get on a shuttle and they're going to drive you 26 miles out, drop you off and then you're running to the finish? Is it a couple loops? Because those courses are going to be different the way you approach your race is going to be different. So the training is going to be slightly different, not hugely different, but more in the mental aspect based on the course. You also need to look at the elevation because Dwayne recently did a podcast about hills. Does your course have hills? Then you really, really need to be training on hills. Even if it doesn't have hills, you should still be training on hills. But Cincinnati was an incredibly hilly run and I live in the desert of Arizona. We have zero hills unless I drive to the mountain, which I'm not going to do. So I found it the tiniest little hill and ran up and down and up and down and up and down to get in my hillwork. But that's something you need to consider. What does the course look like? What does the elevation look like? Have you been to this location before? I've never run in Cincinnati, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. So you need to kind of think those things through. Also, before you start your training plan, because that's something you want to look at when you're looking at the plans that are available for you. Yeah, and I think that's an important point in terms of even goal setting, right? And just thinking about, you know, what are the goals of this marathon? Are you looking to finish your first? Are you looking to finish? If it is your first, you know, we do really highly recommend you do not have a time goal. I know it's such a common misconception I see. It's a common thing I hear out of a lot of runners. Now's when I, you know, hop on calls is what is their goal? And it's their first marathon and they're already saying, I want to go sub four, or I want, you know, 330 or I, you know, they have this specific time goal or sub five, right? Like in their mind. And we really firmly believe that you should literally have the goal of finishing the marathon. And it's your first, it is a different beast. It's a different animal to train for. It is not just doing double of a half marathon training. It is in its whole different category, if you will. So it deserves a lot of respect and thinking about, you know, your goals for the marathon. And if you are looking to PR it, you know, you probably don't want to pick like the toughest course possible. Right. So unfortunately, like you, you're gonna be running New York, right? I have not run New York, but I hear the bridges are really tough. And you need to work on training, right, for the elevations of doing a long, slow build of elevation. And then a nice descent for the bridges, right? So, you know, you want to think about like the level of the course or like, if you're running Disney, like I'm doing, you know, I'm doing the doopy in January. And you know, for that marathon, I'm going to take it all into context of, yeah, I didn't sign up to get a PR at the marathon because it's Disney, like I did the half there back in 2020 before the pandemic. And you realize like it's almost impossible to run like a Disney race for time because there are so many people, there are all these areas where people get filtered into like almost single file at times going into the parks. So, you know, you wind up walking at times when you really don't want to walk, but you have to walk because there's just so many people. And you know, it's if you're looking to PR, then you want to make sure that you're picking the right race to actually PR in terms of elevation, crowd, you know, all of those kind of factors, or are you looking to have fun? Or are you looking for a challenging course? And you know, if you do want to learn more about goal setting, I really would reference everyone back to episode 160 on the health of our podcast. We had coach Carolyn coffin from the inspired souls podcast. I loved her framework that she shared with goal setting and shared some really great tips. So if you're kind of at that stage and want a little bit more deeper dive on goal setting, I would go back and listen to episode 160. So looking at now, okay, we got our goals. We're thinking we already know what race we're running. So we're signed up, we're registered. And you know, now we're starting to think about, you know, what, like level of runner am I like, how do I know what level marathon runner I am? Like, how do you determine whether you're a beginner, you're like, you know, advanced? How do how do we determine this? So we want to really look at a couple things. One, is this your first marathon, because no matter how high your weekly mileage is that this is your first marathon, you're an novice marathoner, you've never done it before. This is totally new. This is going to be something different out of your wheelhouse. Unless you are an ultra marathoner, I will put that caveat on it. If you've only done half marathons, if you've only done five case 10 case, whatever, this is going to be totally new. Even if you are running 46 47 50 miles a week, you're a novice. Then we have the intermediates, which would be people that maybe have done a handful of marathons that are running somewhere between 25 and 45 miles a week, on average, you know, throwing in some speed work in there. And then the advanced marathoners are going to be the people that do this on a regular basis. They're not a regular basis. That's the wrong word. But have done multiple marathons. No, when they need to be fueling, know the pacing that they need to do, know how many speed workouts they need to do in a week and are doing those things and are implementing what is typical of a marathon training plan. So that's a lot. So I just overwhelmed you with a lot of information on that. But we also need to consider, are you doing any strength training? Are you how many hours do you have to commit to your marathon training? Because I'm not gonna lie, it kind of takes over your life in a fun way, because you're thinking about running, you're thinking about your next one, you're thinking about the run you just did the meals you're going to eat, when you're going to sleep, the clothes you're going to wear, what shoes you need to buy next, like all of the things are going to be going through your mind constantly. So how much time do you really have to commit to your training? You need to be doing strength training, you need to be doing your runs, you need to be doing your recovery. So all of that needs to be considered in time. Most people listening to this are going to fall into the novice category, just because we don't typically run a lot of marathons. I mean, unless you're Lou, you're not running a marathon every week, like, it's just not something we do. So most of us are going to fall into that novice category. And for those of you who are new listeners to our podcast, when Coach Whitney says Lou, she's talking about Coach Lou on our team, who, yeah, he does some amazing things with the marathon distance. And he's currently pieces, many marathons pretty much he's he's averaging like three to four per month now that he's facing. So yeah, unless you're Lou and your your body is just like, you know, an unstoppable machine, I would I would agree with that point. So well, and I'll say with Lou, he's not racing all of these marathons. He is treating them as long runs and as training runs. So he is not going all out. He's not trying to PR and all of these. He's for the most part running the majority at a comfortable pace for him. So his body is able to recover in between. We do not recommend by any means that you run multiple multiple marathons in a month. So just I would just want to put that reference out there so people know he's not racing all of these. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. I hope you are enjoying this episode and it is providing value for you. I wanted to take a brief moment to share a story of a real runner like you who is struggling with a common problem that you may be facing. Here is one of our athletes who got the guidance, support and accountability from our healthy runner coaching team to get clarity and structure on the six steps to growing as a runner with personalized strength, nutrition and run plans. I hope their story inspires you that there is hope to either get over your running injury or to continue getting faster or running longer so you can continue to get in those mental clearing miles and enjoy your running journey again. Here is their inspiring story. Hi, my name is Emily. I currently live in Copenhagen, Denmark. I've been working with Coach Whitney in the healthy runner coaching community for about 18 months. Since working with Coach Whitney, I have ran two half marathons, two full marathons and I'm currently training for my third full marathon with her. I started working with her not because of injury, but because I was feeling aimless and my running. I had just had a marathon canceled in spring of 2021 due to COVID and didn't know where to go with that. I heard a podcast by Dwayne about coaching and run plans and was intrigued. However, had a lot of bouts about doing it, I always thought run coaching was for individuals who were fast, looking for BQs or different things like that, not a middle of a pack runner like me. But I quickly found out that run coaching is good for anybody and the benefits that it has given me go beyond the PRs that I've had in races, but are setting me up to keep running. I've been a runner for 11 years and have ran marathons in half marathons previously to working with Coach Whitney. In each of the cycles, I either get burned out, injured or I run the race and then I take a long break after and have to build from zero. With the coaching community, I've learned the importance of consistency in my training, not only during training cycles, but also outside of training cycles. I have learned the importance of strength training as a busy mom of two young boys. I frequently find time for my running, but not so much for my strength training. And since making strength training a priority of my week, I found injuries don't happen as much. Or when I do have pains, I'm able to get help from Whitney or Dwayne right away. And I have a physical therapist here in Denmark that I also work with, who follows many of the same beliefs that the healthy runner coaching community follows. So I always reach out to Whitney and Dwayne and then we'll go see my physical therapist here. I think the biggest thing that I've taken away from my coaching experience is confidence in my running and confidence in knowing and trusting process of a training cycle. So I just can't recommend enough working with somebody in the healthy running community and investing in yourself to become the best runner that you can be with where you are currently at, which is I think the best thing that these coaches do is they look at where you're at, and they build those plans, and they build on those plans, each training cycle, so that you can keep getting better in each training cycle has its own specific purpose. So that is something I have enjoyed with this process. And highly recommend if you're thinking about coaching, and doubting it or wondering, should I do this? Should I invest in myself? Please make that investment. It's probably one of the best investments you can make if you want to continue running as a lifelong runner. I hope sharing that story inspired you and provided you some hope. If you want the one on one structure accountability and support from our healthy runner coaching team of experts, check out the behind the scenes video tour of our signature coaching program. You just heard about including other stories from runners who are just like you, and we're struggling with the same sticking points before they signed up for our program. Just head to learn dot spark healthy runner dot com to learn more and book your strategy call with me today. Now let's get back into this episode. All right, so we we've we've now gotten to the point where we're looking at marathon training plans, where we're noticing that there are these beginner plans, intermediate, advanced that we have to choose from. And we don't just make that selection from what I'm hearing from you based upon like what our goals are, or like how, you know, how much we've been slaying it in the gym for the last like 10 years. And you know, you can like push a sled better than anyone in your gym. You're like, I want the advanced marathon plan, even though this is your first marathon. Right? Like that doesn't necessarily translate into your marathon training plan. It is really based upon experience with the marathon distance, your experience with running and how much average weekly mileage you've been handling. Have you been strength training? Right? Like, again, it's all of those kind of variables versus just like, well, you know what, I think I'm pretty athletic and I think I want to be pretty fast. So let me pick out the advanced plan. So just to kind of clarify that for those that didn't pick up on that, as as Whitney was describing that. And you know, what what other tips I know you kind of have thought about this a little bit in terms of really looking at other variables of marathon training plans. And you kind of like bucketed these into like five tips when choosing, you know, the marathon training plan that's right for you. You know, what's that first tip? Okay, so my number one is you're going to find a plan that is going to meet you where you're at as a runner physically, mentally, all of those things where you're at now. I am not going to jump into a plan that's going to start my long runs at 16 miles. That's just not going to be feasible. You need to find a plan that's going to gradually progress you over the training cycle. And you don't you don't want to find something that you're like, Oh, that's going to be challenging. I am going to do that. And I am going to rock it. No, you need to do a plan, find a plan, select a plan that is going to start where you're at and gradually progress you. It needs to be something that is going to not just throw you into the deep end. You need to learn how to doggy paddle first before you can jump off the high dive. So find a plan that's going to meet you kind of where you're at. I mean, if you're running right now in your longest run of the week is four miles. Maybe you need to find a plan that starts with the long run at maybe six, maybe eight mile long runs. I would start with a six, but you don't want to find something. If your longest run is four miles, that's going to be 12 miles the first week. That's just not going to be a feasible plan. You're not going to be able to do that without getting hurt without getting burnt out without just throwing in the towel and saying forget it. I can't do it. Right. Yeah, you don't want to definitely ramp up that quickly into your training. And I know there are different, you know, training philosophies out there, right? And there are different kind of systems different. I don't know, you would say, you know, coaches in the running space that have their own like training philosophy. And they've developed these systems, they have these programs, they have these plans. You know, I know there's, you know, the the Galloway method, for example, which is for those that aren't aware where there are structured, you know, run walk, run intervals. And, you know, he was kind of one of he was the first to develop a system around this kind of run walk run that, you know, many people utilize and I utilize for many of the runners I've worked with who are currently dealing with a running related injury, where we're not having to stop running because we're implementing the structured run walk run intervals in a progressive fashion. And then I kind of change that up. But like that can be something that's very effective for someone who is battling an injury or someone who is a true, true beginner, right? And they are a quote unquote back of the pack runner, right? And I think that's a phenomenal way for someone to run their first marathon. And probably a more realistic way for someone to like conquer and run their first marathon. You know, the I think there's pros and cons to a lot of these training philosophies. And you know, I just bring these up. Maybe we could talk about some of the common ones and where, you know, if someone was listening, what may or may not work for them, and it might not be the right fit. Because sometimes, you know, we hear about these plans from someone posted on, you know, social media, you had a friend who did a marathon and you're like, well, they did their marathon and they utilized the Galloway method. But you could be a runner who has always been, let's say on the weaker side, right? You feel like your hips aren't strong enough. You've maybe had reoccurring injuries. And you've always been a flexible person. But you realize like you've never ever done dedicated strength work because you just don't like doing strength training, right? And you just love running. You know, the Galloway method or their program, I probably wouldn't recommend for you because, you know, they don't really promote strength training per se. And they don't have a component of strength training within their program. So, you know, if if that was you, then I would say, well, you know, that's that's the negative right to that type of program. But are there some other programs that you've heard of before that people might be considering? And we could talk maybe some pros and cons. Yeah, I know the Hal Higg didn't method is another one that's pretty common. You've probably heard that method and they promote a lot of cross training. So you're still getting your heart rate up, you're still doing, you know, your physical activity, but maybe you're biking or you're swimming or you're doing that some other form of exercise as well. He doesn't, there's not a ton of speed work in the Hal Higg didn't plans. I've never personally used any of these plans. But I definitely know people who have and the Galloway method, I think is the most popular. I've heard that name over and over and over and over again, and actually he was at the Expo in Cincinnati and I didn't say to listen to his talk, but he he was there and there were there was a whole pacing group that was running the marathon using his method. So that is definitely, I think the most popular. Yeah. And yeah. And we've had a bunch of clients I've worked with that have used his program before. And again, I think I really believe the run walk run method can be very effective for like many runners. There are definitely a couple things that I'm not sure I necessarily agree with or believe like, I know they kind of have their athletes every so often do this like magic mile. And they have a lot of like practice race stuff, where a lot of times I feel like runners actually overdo it during their training, because they almost go into like race mode. And then unfortunately, I see them after the fact like when they get injured, right? So I am seeing that kind of select population. I'm sure there are many that do it and don't get injured. But I guess I might be a little biased there. And yeah, the Hal Hagen program, that's actually what I used in the beginning. I think I feel like that's almost where most runners find that. I don't know how, but he's got like the lockdown on Google searches, I feel like you like Google it. His plans come up. So he's got like the best SEO out there. And you know, I agree with the limitations there are, you know, specificity with the speed work. And also, you know, I'm not a big, I'm not a big cross training fan. I guess I'll just be, I'll put it blunt. And I know a lot of triathletes, you know, might have a problem with me saying this, because obviously they really believe in cross training, because literally that's what they're doing is they're doing three different sports. And they need to cross train essentially from running. So they do less running because they have the other. But my argument would be, well, that's what their sport is. It contains all three of those elements. So you need to actually dedicate time to swimming and biking in addition to running. But my whole thing is, is specificity of training and how are we going to improve as runners is to actually run, right? And to actually get more efficient at running. And we don't necessarily need to do another form of aerobic conditioning, because our running is actually aerobic conditioning. So why would I do a different form of aerobic conditioning? If my main goal is to get better aerobically, I would rather spend that time as opposed to hopping on the elliptical, hopping on a bike, doing a spin class, right, getting in the pool, to actually doing strength training. Because that's going to actually be more protective for my body in my running journey versus doing another form of cardiovascular exercise. And I would say generalizations, obviously, you know, I think there's a couple of, you know, specific populations, especially again, in maybe an injured runner and had a lot of loading sensitivity due to arthritis, let's say, and they couldn't tolerate as much weight bearing. Then yeah, maybe offloading with some cycling and some pool and some swimming could be a great thing to preserve their joints going forward in the future. But yeah, for a let's say healthy runner, starting a marathon training plan, I don't really see the value in doing cross training per se, when your goal is to actually run the race. And again, I think you'll get a lot more bang for your buck spending that extra time, so to speak, that you're not running is actually strength training and like getting stronger. So it could be more protective for your body. And then I know there's, you know, the heart rate training, low heart rate method, the maffetone method, which really focuses on really building, you know, a solid base and a solid foundation, like everything we talk about in our base training for running, you know, and keeping the heart rate in check and really building up aerobic capacity with purported benefits for hormonal imbalance. For those that struggle with that or, you know, fat burning to utilize different energy systems. But again, I would say for the majority of folks who are running a marathon and your mean goal is to let's say get faster, you know, you're going to want to add in faster elements of running from a conditioning standpoint, working different energy systems, and even stressing the body. So stressing your muscles tendons joints, right, like tolerating faster running if your goal is to go faster on race day. I think it has its place in training. And we use elements of that in our coaching philosophy at, you know, spark healthy runner. But I think for most folks that might be a kind of extreme, I would say method to train for a marathon, unless you've tried other methods before, right? And like, now you're just going with, Hey, I've tried this, this, this, and now I just need something different. And I need to go like, again, I think of it as like going back to the basics, and like starting again from like the beginning. But at some point, you're going to need to run faster if your goal is to actually get faster in the race. And then I know another popular one is like the Hanson method. And I know there's been some like elite runners who have utilized this have talked about the benefits of this. And I guess I'll just give my little take from like a running physical therapist standpoint is, you know, this is based upon like high volume focus, intensity and not doing a single long run as long. So maybe not doing a 20 mile or before, which is pretty, let's say standard, right, doing 18 or 20 mile or before your marathon during training. So they, their philosophy is to not put as much demand in that one long run. And to do more weekly volume and to do like back to back longer runs. The thing that I found is for a lot of beginners, it's it's just too intense from a volume standpoint, or those that are prone to injuries, usually don't tolerate that type of plan too well, because it's pretty rigorous to like do that amount of volume and training. And I know, you know, some of our athletes have done that for I know Coach Cat has utilized that method before. And so there, there are different training philosophies out there. And I guess that's kind of the main point. And I think what you're saying, Coach, is that you really need to think about what is this training philosophy? You know, where are you at? And is this training philosophy going to be right for you? Don't just do it because you had a friend that did it, or you heard it's the best thing ever or some elite runner follow this plan. I forgot who it was, but I heard an interview by one of the elites who was doing that and then they switch to a different plan and right like, there's all reasons why, you know, if you're reaching some plateau in your marathon journey and you've run multiple multiple marathons, then that's where like I see like the Hanson method possibly working out where you are the aging athlete and you've run so many marathons. Now you're in your late 50s, 60s, 70s, and you're just like, you know what, my body just doesn't tolerate, you know, being out there for like three hours slug fest of doing a, you know, an 18 or 20 mile or then I think that's when, you know, you might see some of those kind of benefits. I don't know any other thoughts to add to that, Coach? There's also the 80 20 method, which is very similar to what most of our coaches at Healthy Runner do. 80% of your runs throughout the week, your 80% of your weekly mileage should be at that easy pace should be an easy run, meaning the remainder 20% can be done at a harder, faster pace. Now that's not necessarily going to be like sprinting pace. It's just going to be harder than your easy pace. And I've actually followed Matt Fitzgerald's 80 20 back in the day when I first started running, I did heart rate training, his heart rate training method. And it worked for me, but I will say heart rate training is a whole different fall game because you need to wear the chest strap. You need there's just so much that goes into that that if you are a beginner marathoner, I wouldn't recommend doing heart rate training just because you tend to get go down the rabbit hole of analyzing all the data and all that goes into that. So I know me personally, as a coach, I like to give my athletes effort based. So I'll say on a scale of one to 10, 10 being as hard as you could possibly run run between a four to five for your easy pace, or this run should be at a seven on the effort scale. That way it's personal. It's what your body can handle what you can do. So I do think a lot of us utilize the 80 20 principal as a whole. But there are plenty of programs out there, plenty of philosophies. So if you've tried something in the past, and it just was not your cup of tea, there are other things out there that you can try. All right, so choosing the right training philosophy and the plan that's for you tip number one, what's tip number two? Tip number two is making sure that you have a recovery or that your plan includes recovery. You need to have what we call cutback weeks or recovery weeks. Every three to four weeks, you need to have a decreased mileage. You need to allow your body time to recover. You can't just keep going, going, going, increasing the mileage and hoping that foam rolling is going to be enough. Your body needs the downtime. Your body needs to recover your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, your brain, everything needs time to recover so that when you come back, you can run harder, stronger, faster, longer, all of the things. I love it. So as we talk about in our six steps to growing as a runner, recovery is one of those kind of buckets that we need to fill. And yes, we have strategies and tools for recovery, whether it's your foam roller, your massage gun, the nutrition that we're taking for proper recovery. But in your marathon training plan, you're saying there needs to be structured cutback weeks in there. Absolutely. Yes, yes, agreed wholeheartedly. All right. So what's tip number three? Tip number three is strength training. Does your plan or does the plan that you're looking at include strength training? And not just, I'm going to go to the gym and do whatever I feel like strength training. It needs to be runner specific strength training. It needs to be something that is going to help you as a runner. It's maybe you need to make sure that it includes plyometrics. You know, when we're running, we say this a lot when you're running, you're on one foot. So you need to make sure that you can do single leg exercises. You need to make sure that you're not just going to the gym and doing your bicep curls and your tricep kickbacks because yeah, you use your arms when you're running, but that's not runner specific strength training. So you need to make sure that that is included. But just like our running plan, your strength training needs to build. It needs to have different phases. You can't just do the exact same workout for 16 weeks. Your body's going to get used to it and you're going to stop seeing the benefits. So maybe make sure you're doing runner specific. I love it. Yes. Yes. Oh, man. You know, I'm passionate about this one. So it is and it does, you know, it almost irks me at this point that there are still run coaches that don't value the importance of this. But I hear it all the time, you know, hop on calls with runners and, you know, they say like, yeah, I was working with this person or that person, whatever, you know, they gave me like a couple of random like YouTube videos and was like, it was like an afterthought. It was like, yeah, oh, you want some strength training here. Do these exercises, right? And it's not structured for you in a progressive fashion that builds and is not runner specific. And I love that you mentioned plyometrics. And then the other thing that I'll mention also is, you know, it's got to be single leg exercise. Like you cannot just do, you know, the little circuit that you went to your local gym, you had a personal trainer set you up, you know, with a card and you went around and just did the leg extension, the hamstring curl machine, the leg press, the chest press, the shoulder press, the lap pull down. And that's your circuit. And you do that two or three times a week. And you do that forever. Maybe, you know, I'll give you this. Maybe you do progress it because you get stronger and you actually increase the weight. So that in of itself is actually a positive. They've progressed it as you've gotten stronger. But, you know, we need to actually use our special layer leg muscles as we use them when running. And that's with your foot on the ground. And we need to have good stability on one leg. And that is critical for running. So we need to make sure that our strength training, you know, looks like that. So just for those that are looking at other plans, this would be like, for me, it would be like a critical question that I would ask them is, you know, besides everything that you get with the plan, program, whatever it is, is, you know, does your plan have strength training? And if so, ask what it is, right? Like, don't let them just like be like, yeah, we'll give you a couple exercises to do. Like, what exactly is your strength training plan? What types of exercises can I do them in my gym? Can I do them in my home? You know, everyone has different, right, considerations, a lot of other clients we work with, you know, don't have time to go to a gym or, you know, they got a nice little home gym or they just want to be able to do it from the convenience of their home. They have young kids, right? They can't necessarily go to a gym. So make sure that it works for your life, whether it's you could do them at home or like me, I like to get to the gym, right? Like, you know, I got to be able to do something that I could do in the gym. And so just all of those questions, I think this is like a key tip because again, this is going to be, you know, in our six steps of growing as runner, right? This is our foundation. This is going to allow your body to do the hard runs that you are going to be doing during marathon training because it is going to be hard whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced, right? Because it's all scaled to your level. So it's never going to be easy, right? It's going to be hard if you are at the appropriate level that you are. So, strength training is just going to keep you healthy so you can continue to run and can continue, you know, doing the faster workouts, can continue running the long runs and kind of nailing those in your training and feeling like confident to toe the line without getting injured. And honestly, it's going to help from a performance standpoint as well. It's going to make you run faster. So we know that then proves efficiency with running. So you got to make sure your plan has strength training. Absolutely. I know for me, doing like the gym, I hate the gym. I hate it. I will not go to the gym. Nope, not doing it. I work at at home. I got my weights back here. I got my bench. I got all the things that, you know, that's expensive. I didn't buy it all at once. I bought a set of weights. Then I progressed and bought a bigger set. You know, so it took me a while to get all the weights that I have. But for me, with little kids coming up on summer break, I do my run super early in the morning. I do my strength training after they're up and they're eating breakfast. So you have to find what's going to work for you. Aside from the training plan, you got to figure out how you're going to work it into your life. So that was my little me doing it at home. Hey, there was a three month time period in my life that I did strength training in my living room. Thank you, COVID. I love it. With my bucket of bricks and my mall and my snacks. We have videos of all of those. So they're there. Like everyone can see them on YouTube. That way, yes, did work out in this living room. But yeah, luckily for me, that was the only three months of my life that I've had to do that. But it's been extremely helpful because now I know I can do it if need be. And, you know, we were just kind of finalizing our summer travel plans. We have a couple of vacations. We've got my daughter, you know, participating like nationals down in Florida. We're going to go see my uncle, right? Like down south. So I'm like, man, I'm literally not going to be home for like three straight weeks. And then, you know, of course, my thought went to like, crap, I'm not going to be able to go to the gym for three straight weeks. I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to pull my kettlebell out. I have to pull my pull up bar. I'm going to have to pull out, you know, all the stops to, you know, do all my home training workout during that time period. So I can, I can stay healthy in my marathon training. Because I'll be in full blown marathon training mode during that time. So you will. All right. So tip number three, strength training. Make sure the marathon training plan includes that. What's tip four? Speed work. Does your plan include speed work? Now, as a novice beginner marathoner, we're not going to throw you into doing 400 meter repeats, 800 meter repeats. And you're going to probably start out with just easy running to begin with. Then you'll progress to maybe strides and then it'll progress from there. But you want to make sure that you are doing some speed. We talked about, or I talked about the 80, 20 principle, 20% of your week should be hard, harder than your easy running. So you want to make sure that that is included in your plan, whether it is intervals, whether it is some sort of a track workout, whether your long run has some sort of speed work in it. Now I know Dwayne and myself have done like 16 mile long runs that have marathon pace work and tempo pace work and half marathon pace work all in one run. So you need to look at your plan. Does it have some sort of speed work at some point in it? Beginner plans should be a little bit down the road. Advanced and intermediate might start off with some speed work. Yeah, so a great decision making process. And I would say the most common mistake is most people choose a plan with speed work when they really don't have any business doing speed work during marathon trading. So again, I feel like a broken record here, but marathon training is very rigorous on the body. If it's your first time ever running 20 miles, it's going to be your first time ever doing 26.2 on race day, then we don't want to increase another variable of having you doing faster running at the same time that you're building your weekly volume out, that you're building your long runs out. It's just going to be too much stress on your body. Your body is going to break down. So make sure that if you're choosing a plan with speed work that your body and your current running fitness, your current health, and I stress that because a lot of times you get a lot of runners with like, well, last time I did a marathon, I did speed work. And it was like, Oh, well, when was the last time you did a marathon? Oh, that was before kids. It was probably like eight years ago, or, you know, it was before the pandemic. Haven't done one since, you know, so it's now like three years out. I'm like, well, a lot of things have changed since then, right? Like, what has your running looked like on a yearly basis since then? Have we been consistent? Have we been doing speed work? Have you run like, faster half marathons, right? Like all these questions you guys need to consider when choosing your marathon training plan. So, yeah, speed work very, very important. And then what's your fifth and final tip here, coach? It needs to be a plan that excites you, that makes you excited to put on your shoes in the morning or evening, and go out the door and do your workout, do your run. You don't want something that you're like, I have to go for a run again. No, you want something that is going to challenge you. I mean, appropriately challenge you, like we've talked about, you need to find a plan that's going to meet you where you're at, but it should challenge you. Your strength training should challenge you. Your speed work should challenge you. Your easy runs, the length of them is going to get long from which is challenging. All of these things should excite you. It should be fun to say, you know, what I just ran the longest run I have ever run in my life. I just hit 18 miles, and that was awesome. And then you're running, you're on that runner's high and you're riding high all day. It's, you want to find a plan that checks all the boxes that we mentioned before, the strength training, the recovery, all of the things it needs to have, but it also needs to be something that you're going to stick to because if it's something that's boring or that's too hard, you're not going to stick to it, you're not going to do it. So find a plan that's appropriate for you where you're at that is exciting. I love it. I love it. You got to be excited. You got to really have the mindset, right? Like wrapped around and being all in on marathon training and want to actually do it. So we're going to share with you some different marathon training plans for the types of different plans. But before we do that, I do want to get into kind of our final stretch here is, you know, if you could change one thing about the misconception of picking a marathon training plan, what would that be, coach? I would have to say, not all plans are created equally. And what works for me is not going to work for you. I can almost 100% guarantee my plan for me will not work for you. You need to find a plan that is unique to you, just like running shoes are unique to you. Find what works for you. I love that. Yes. And I would also, I think my misconception is really that it is be it's not based upon your goal for the marathon. It should be based upon what is your current fitness? Like have a true like look in the mirror, where are you at right now today as a runner and do a very good self assessment and not based upon your dreams, your goals, a time, or a specific marathon that you want to conquer. But do it based upon like where are you at right now? And I think you have to have a good self reflection, self assessment, self awareness of any other words I could think of itself. You know, when you are picking your plan. So yeah, you shared a lot of great things here guys, just kind of recapping before we kind of talk about different training plans. Coach Whitney really talked about like how to choose the right marathon training plan. You know, when should you start your marathon plan and your training and maybe you're listening to this before you even signed up for race. And then, you know, I hope you reconsidered being like, Oh, wow, I was about to do this race. But you know what, I just learned that it's not like I just start running 16 weeks before my marathon, right? So I'm hoping maybe we can save a couple of you runners out there from suffering a running related injury and just being disappointed that you can't finish the training that you really, you know, the race that you signed up for and actually be able to do it. So our goal is to save as many runners as possible. So we can, you know, run the races that we sign up for and feel good and be able to get outside on a consistent basis to get our mental clearing miles in. But you really talked about like how many weeks should a plan be, you know, what level the different levels of plans that are out there from beginner to advanced different. We talked about marathon training philosophies, what really cut back weeks are and the importance of that for recovery. We talked about the importance of strength training and making sure that your plan does have strength training and like one of the things to actually look for in plans with strength training. We talked about speed work, add it, not add it, what type of speed work are you doing? And really thinking about, you know, plans that excite you, plans that are based upon your goals and, you know, what your current level of fitness is. And there are different, you know, marathon training plans out there for different purposes, all them range in the amount of support and customization for you. They're going to vary in price, depending upon how much support you want, right? So something you can download off the internet is great. It's free, right? I'm sure chat GPT can write you a plan right now. If you had a little chat, I've heard some people doing that and, you know, you're going to get probably like 70%, 80% accuracy, because there are some things that chat GPT will leave out in your plan. And basically some of the principles we talked about today, you know, the next level up from that is you can buy and download a quote unquote beginner or quote unquote intermediate, quote unquote advanced plan on the internet or from someone you follow on Instagram, they probably have like a link in their bio and you can buy one of their plans that they created. It's like a prefabricated plan, right? It's they've just classified, here's my beginner plan, here's what I consider intermediate, here's what I consider to advance. I know even on final surge, like the training platform we use for our clients, you can do that. Training peaks, same thing, that's another, you know, platform where you can just go on there and buy any coaches plan that's like prefabricated. You know, the good thing about this is hopefully, you know, at minimum, it's made by someone who's reputable, someone you trust that they like, they created a pretty decent, right, prefabricated plan. And then the next step up from that is like buying a custom plan based upon you filling out specific needs, right? You would typically fill out an intake form, just like all the clients in our coaching program do, you know, folks who write training plans would have you fill out a form, they take the information on the form, and they create a customized plan for you. So that's kind of the next step up from that. And then, you know, I would say the other two options that you guys have for marathon training plans is doing like a group based training program, which it could be either a custom plan or, depending upon the size of the group training, I know some little larger ones, right? Like I know we have mentioned some of the big names before, you know, their group training is all prefabricated. So you just get classified into their prefabricated beginner plan, intermediate plan, advanced plan, whatever. And you know, some of the benefits of the group training models are, you might get some support. So, you know, that can vary what it is. And you could get some group coaching calls, you might get like office hours with the coach who, you know, is running the program, you might get some asynchronous videos to watch. So you'll have like some modules or some videos that you could watch on your own time. So it's a little bit more than just getting like the actual like training plan. So that's the benefit there. And then really, you know, the highest level is like one-on-one coaching, where you get like full support, you get more individualized accountability, you get a personalized plan created for you. And most importantly, and this was really the biggest factor that, you know, when we really started Spark Healthy Runner, and we started doing run coaching, where I went from doing more of like rehab based working with injured runners to doing what we do today is the modifications and the feedback throughout. Especially for marathon training, I find this is literally probably the most important factor in determining success on you actually reaching your marathon goals, because it is extremely rare that you're going to be able to get a plan, and you're going to do the plan exactly as is. And if you don't have the knowledge of being a run coach yourself, you might not, or most likely, you're not going to know how to adjust the plan when you do wind up missing a run or a strength session because of a, you know, travel work week that you had, or because you got an illness, or because you right had some family issues, because you're under like an extreme amount of stress that you're going through, and now your plan actually needs to be modified. So that's one of the main reasons why, you know, at Spark Healthy Runner, we don't actually have plans that you can download, because I would never want to give someone a plan that I knew isn't going to really, it's like rolling the dice essentially, right? It's like, yeah, this might work for like 50% of you, or, you know, and then it can scale up a little bit. If I wrote a plan for you, then it's like, yeah, there's a good chance this is like a 75 to 80% success rate. We really wanted to impact runners where we can pretty much lock it in almost with certainty 100%. Like, you're going to get to the start line, right? We're going to give you all the advice for like race day strategy to get you to the finish line as well. But, you know, anything can happen at race day, but, you know, you're going to be able to get to that start line at 100%, and the only real way that you can do that is by having the modifications and it personalized to your busy demands as a employee, a worker, a, you know, a mom, a dad, right? Like, no one is training for marathons, and that's their sole focus in life, right? Because we'd be all, we'd all be professionals, and we wouldn't be listening to this podcast probably. So, you know, that's not anyone that really is in, you know, our community that we're really looking at targeting. So, that was really the decision-making process that I go through. You know, would we be able to sell more plans? Would we be able to, you know, essentially have more customers? Yes. But, again, I feel strongly in my values of really providing like, you know, as a physical therapist, I always have like highest quality care. And it was like, you know, you're coming to me, you're getting the highest quality care, you're getting like individualized feedback, you're working with me, you're not working with one of the PTEs in the clinic, and they're taking you through exercise. You're like working with me individually. So, I wanted that for our coaching team as well within our program. So, you know, if you've struggled to get faster or stay healthy in your marathon training in the past, and your, or you're really new to the marathon distance, and you would like to like maximize your training, not take any risks at all, you want to like raise those percentages I was talking about. And, you know, you can get to the start line more confident than ever knowing that you're going to be healthy. That's exactly what we do in our one-on-one signature spark healthy runner coaching program. You know, with our program, you have not only a run coach, but you have a team like behind you, each step, guiding you through the way, you know, you're going to have myself as a running physical therapist on the team, you're going to have broker-registered dietitian, run coach on the team, you're going to have our amazing run coaching team, like Coach Whitney here, really providing you a structured approach of not only runs, but strength training in a progressive fashion like we talked about, all the support and accountability, so you can actually enjoy the process of marathon training, and most importantly, enjoy lifelong injury free running after your marathon rate. So, if you want to see if you're a good fit for working with Coach Whitney or any of the coaches on our team, you can simply schedule a strategy call with me today by grabbing one of the remaining available slots on my calendar to really conquer your running goal or that big marathon on your calendar to simply schedule your call, just go to learn.sparkhealthierunner.com forward slash coaching. So, Coach Whitney, as always, this has been such a great chat. I love this conversation. It was something that, you know, I think I'm hoping is going to help many soon-to-be marathoners make their decisions and provide a little bit more informed decision-making process when they are selecting their marathon training plan. So, thank you so much for educating our community as always. Absolutely. It's my absolute pleasure. I love helping runners, so this was great. And we'll have to follow your New York City Marathon training journey along the way. I'm excited for that. Yes, absolutely. If you guys want to follow my journey, I'm on Instagram at runwittwhitspark. And you can follow along and see what I'm up to. Yes, awesome. So, yeah, guys, definitely follow Coach Whitney on Instagram. And Coach Whitney helps me out on our team with a lot of the social posts from our Spark Healthier Runner account as well. So, thank you guys so much for listening to this. If you tuned in, if you're listening to this during a training run, I hope you are crushing your run right now and enjoying those mental clearing miles. And if you're watching this video on the Spark Healthier Runner YouTube channel, I appreciate all of you guys. Now, let's maintain a strong mind, a strong body. And let's just keep on running. Until next time. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Healthy Runner podcast, where we help you get stronger, run faster and enjoy lifelong injury-free running. If you found this content valuable, here's five ways we can help you grow as a runner for free. One, grab a free copy of our six steps to growing as a runner framework at learn.sparkhealthierunner.com forward slash grow. Two, follow our Instagram page at Spark Healthierunner. Three, join our free group by searching Healthy Runner in Facebook for subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com forward slash spark healthy runner. Five, leave us a five star review so we can gain access to more experts in the running field and bring those lessons and trainings back here right to you. Don't forget, hit the subscribe button on Apple podcast or the follow button on Spotify so you don't miss the next episode of Healthy Runner so you can maintain a strong mind, a strong body and just keep running. Lastly, if you've been struggling with the constant injury cycle, not eating the right foods for running or not getting faster as a runner and you are ready to invest in becoming a lifelong injury-free runner, head to spark healthy runner.com forward slash coaching to apply for a one-on-one signature coaching program. Thank you again. I really truly mean it from the bottom of my heart that I appreciate you for listening and sharing this podcast with a running friend who can use the help. Now go and crush your run today. See you next week. ♪♪♪♪ .