Transcript:

Hey guys, this is Luke Humphrey. Welcome back to the Luke Humphrey running podcast. I appreciate all the great feedback from the last one. Yes, the audio is much better, right? And so I think that will be a much better listening experience. And a lot of you reconfirmed what I was kind of aware of. A lot of you listen to the podcast while you're running or doing whatever. It's nice to have that instead of just a YouTube video, which I would tend to agree with.

In today's episode, I'd like to discuss the prerequisites for the HMM beginner plan, as they seem to be a fairly common source of confusion. And part of that is, when I wrote the book and talked to Kevin and Keith, we were aware of some things, but other things we were not aware of, and so some of it was just, we didn't know it was an issue until more people read the book and then it became apparent that it was an issue. And I think some of it is just because of how the beginner plan is set up and all that good stuff. So today, that's what I want to talk to you about because it really is our goal to make people as successful as possible. And so two, that means we have to make sure that they are in the right training plan, right? If they're not in the training plan, the training plan itself could be great, but if it's not the right one for you, then it's not going to do any good. So we want to make sure that you make the right choice in training plan and that it fits you where you're at no matter you know, one of things I'm going to talk about is just the fact that like sometimes you have to throw out the whole, you know, title of beginner intermediate advanced because a lot of times it's really just based on what you're trying to accomplish and what you can fit in during a week, right? It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or not. cause I think a lot of people will tell you that the beginner plan of Hansons Marathon Method is much more like an intermediate plan compared with other programs.

So, with that being said, who is the beginner plan for? And I think that's the first place we should probably start. And so, you know, it's not necessarily recommended for those who are brand new to running, know, meaning that you signed up for a marathon because it was something that you wanted to do before you turned a certain age and you've never really run before and now you're gonna run a marathon in 18 weeks. This probably is not the best plan for you.

I would recommend other things. So if that's you and you're listening to this, I encourage you to listen through this the whole way, but recognize that you're going to be better served taking another avenue. And it can still include this plan, but it might require more time between the time you're deciding to start this now.

and when you really should be starting for your next, for your first marathon. cause I think there's, there's things you need to do to get ready to be able to handle what this schedule is going to be asking you to do. And so from my experience, a lot of people, put themselves in a situation. It's probably going to be a little over their head, maybe not right away, but what it's one of those things where you get six, eight, 10 weeks down the road and it just is all added up over time. It just becomes too much to be able to for your body to to keep up with and that's when things get bad pretty quick and then we're scrambling to try to even get you to the starting line and I think if we approach it the right way we don't have to we can take a lot of that worry out right and so so if this is you just talking about being a first-time marathoner what I would encourage you to do is take some time

the very least build your volume up to 20 miles a week, right? So if you're starting from zero or you're only like, you know, a couple miles, a couple times a week and you're like, know, my kid is a perfect example. Like I thought she was gonna be running 10 miles a week in cross country this year. And I would say she probably averaged six a week. And that was basically her running at practice two miles, three times a week, right? Is what it came out to. So if that sounds about like you, then I would take some time, build that volume up to, you know, I would start with adding days first and then add volume to that, right? So if I'm running three days a week, I would go to four days a week and then five days a week over several, over a few weeks and then add volume to those runs to the point where you can get to 20 miles a week and feel fairly comfortable with that. And I think if you did that for four to six weeks, you could probably do that pretty easily. And then you would be in a position where maybe you could start the training plan. For instance, if you're listening to this and you have some time, but that date that you're going to run the marathon is set, like you already signed up, it's going to happen regardless, and you can't get out of it, then you have say 22, 23, 24 weeks, start now, build that volume up and get to the point where you can handle that volume. And then you can at least set yourself up for when you get to doing workouts in the beginner plan, you're going to be in a much better situation to handle them. Because now the volume itself isn't new. You're used to the volume. The only new thing that we'd be adding would be intensity. And it's when we're adding both volume and intensity at the same time that things can go pretty sour in a few weeks. Usually you can handle it for two to four weeks. And then it's just you've kind of reached that breaking point where

It's just not tolerable anymore. Right? So the better option would be if there's not a date set now, take your time, build that volume to like 20 miles a week, like we talked about, and then do a training segment, like where you're doing a 5k would be the simplest thing to do, right? Train for a 5k run that 5k. Cause then you're going to introduce yourself one to more volume. You're going to introduce yourself to newer things in training, like some longer runs, some

repeats on the track, some threshold runs, things like that. You're going to get more accustomed with that. So it's not necessarily about running the 5K itself, but it's more about learning the different variables in training and being able to apply those in training so that when you come to the marathon, which is much more important to you, then you'd be more prepared to be able to handle that. And you're going to know why we're doing certain things, right? And it's going to be much easier to apply to yourself than if we're just throwing you into it all at once. And so that's a lot to ask of somebody to learn all these new things that they're not necessarily accustomed to, and then add all these things in their training, that's probably gonna be too much and a little bit of overload for them. And it really doesn't set you up for a good chance to be successful in the marathon. That would be better, and then you can use that 5K that you race, and you can use the time from that, or whatever you decide to race. And then you can set an established time to start training for the marathon, you would give yourself a much better baseline to kind of know at least where to start on for a goal time, right? So, you run a 5K and X amount of time and you throw it into a chart, and it says, "Well, I can run a 430 marathon. Okay, well, that's a great place to start." We can throw that training in, and we can set our paces based on that 430 marathon. And then we can adjust accordingly based on how you handle that, right? So it just makes more sense to do it that way, but I get that.

You might be behind the eight ball on this, and you've already signed up and now you're like, man, I'm, I've got to figure this out real quick. So, that's the adoption would be to just at least build your volume up before you start the training plan, and then start the training plan and go from there. All right. So, given all that, I would recommend the beginner plan for a person who has experience as a runner. They've run other races. They've run, you know, 15, 20 to 30 miles a week before they've done different types of workouts or at least are aware of these different types of workouts, things like that. It can be their first marathon. That's not, know, if somebody has experience in racing, you know, five Ks, 10 Ks, maybe even a half marathon, then yes, absolutely. The beginner plan would fit that person pretty well, right? It's more about if a person is brand new to running, this plan itself is probably.

a little much for that person. Especially if there's no time. If you're starting right from scratch, jumping into a plan, probably too much. But if you have experience and you've raced other races, the Beginner Plan is a great place to start. I would even argue that if you've run a marathon or two, maybe three marathons, say your first one, you just kind of took on a whim and you just followed a plan on the internet. And then the second one, maybe you got a Hale Higdon book or something like that, or a Galloway book or whatever.

And you followed those, but now you're trying to get, okay, now I'm more performance minded. I really want to see where I can go. You're looking at what we were, it was in the plans, and you're like, Wow,, that beginner plan might be too easy, but the advanced plan is probably too much. I would start with the beginner plan. I've had people run, you know, well under three 30 on the beginner plan. I have people who just stay with the beginner plan, right? They used it once they started seeing improvement. So that's just kind of what they stick with. And they know, I think they throw in a little bit of their own personal tweaks here and there, for the vast majority of the schedule is the beginner plan, and they have done really, really well with it and it fits a lot of people. So that's what I was talking about earlier,