Start Here for Marathon Prep
Foundations for a Next-Level Outcome
Almost a year has passed since my last marathon—a 2:47 at altitude and on a rolling course—and I am getting back on the saddle. That came after a lot of hard work here in Colorado, so I opted to take a breather and put training on the back burner.
My motivation has returned to both train and build my endurance ventures here at Ferg Running. However, that means pursuing a more ambitious goal. My target now is 2:35 at the Chevron Houston Marathon in January 2026 (register here). We all seem to understand round numbers, and 2:30 would be a dream. However, I am concerned that 3:33 per kilometer (5:43 per mile) is a touch ambitious for me.
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At present, my best is 2:45 on a regular course, which I ran at Grandma's Marathon last year, and 2:38 on a net-downhill course, which I ran at the Utah Valley Marathon in 2023. On a side note, the latter, which finishes in Provo, is one of the best courses around for Boston Marathon qualification. The organizers have tweaked the point-to-point course to narrowly avoid Boston's net-downhill indexing requirements, which kick in at 1,500 feet of net loss.
To gauge my capacity for improvement, I plan to run an all-out half marathon in Dublin, Ireland, in November. If I can crack 1:15 there, I will consider a target faster than 2:35.
However, I am getting ahead of myself and the purpose of this post. The target is Houston, which is just over 20 weeks away. I have been easing back into training for the past three weeks and ran 75 miles (120 kilometers) last week. Here, I want to get down my initial nuts and bolts for preparation and give readers a sense for how to construct their own plan. Why I chose Houston will remain a topic for another day.
So many elements go into such a plan, one hardly knows where to start. Let me note my chief references. My overarching mentor is Lorraine Moller. She is a four-time Olympian from my home province in New Zealand, and I am privileged to live near Boulder, her home, and count her as a friend. Her autobiography is On the Wings of Mercury, and I highly recommend it. A review will appear soon with the Ferg Running newsletter.
For endurance training, I have long held Arthur Lydiard's methods in high regard. You can learn more about these through the Lydiard Foundation or by reading his many books coauthored with the late Garth Gilmore. I read all I could find by these two back in the 1990s at my high-school library in New Zealand, and they changed my views forever. For a more modern explanation, you can pick up Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard by Keith Livingstone.
For nutrition and strength training, I follow the recommendations of Michael Colgan. In the mid-2000s, I got to meet and be certified by him as a power program coach at his home on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. However, the Colgan Institute appears to be no more. He is at least 86 years old now, so he has likely retired and retreated from public life. His two most prominent reference works are The New Power Program and Optimum Sports Nutrition, and I still turn to them as starting points. For more personalized advice on strength training for running, I go to Austin McCool and Niki Veldman. Likewise, for nutrition I go to dietitian Kiertson Murphy.
Since this post is already ballooning, I will break the plan down into parts via future posts. In short, I am following a basic 24-week plan from the Lydiard Foundation's training wizard. I make many adjustments to suit my own preferences, and I follow my own sense for how much recovery I need. I also consider workout ideas from Advanced Marathoning by Pete Fitzinger and Scott Douglas.
We all have our own time availability and level of motivation, but my workload stems from my rowing days at Lake Karapiro in the 2000s. Within that community, doubling was the minimum and just expected. The athletes there targeted 200 kilometers (124 miles) per week from about 12 sessions on the water or the erg (rowing machine). The most committed among them would add in a couple of strength sessions per week, along with perhaps a yoga class and some cross-training such as running or cycling.
Rowing has an oddly similar speed as running, although rowing places less impact on your joints. I am targeting the training load upheld by elite rowers and will follow a weekly checklist, to be outlined in a forthcoming post. Fitting this all in will not be a piece of cake, but it will be necessary to achieve a meaningful improvement over previous years’ performances.
Fergus Hodgson, CAIA, is a Lydiard Foundation Level II endurance coach. He is available for personal consultations: register here. Follow him on Instagram, Strava, YouTube, and X.