The Paris Marathon story

On 11 April 2010 I ran the Paris Marathon to raise money for The Stroke Association. It was my first marathon, and I put together my own training schedule (which I stuck to with varying level of success). Below is the schedule, and linked to it are my reports of the training for that week.

Feel free to use this training schedule if you’re working towards a marathon. In case you’re interested, I managed to achieve a chip time of 2:59:17, so while I’m no running pro, there’s some level of proven effectiveness.

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	TOTAL (KM)	TOTAL (miles)
Week 1	20.5		10.5	10	Spdwrk	10		51	31.875
Week 2	22		10.5	10	Spdwrk	10		52.5	32.8125
Week 3	24		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	10		56	35
Week 4	26		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	5		53	33.125
Week 5	10		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	11.5	10	53.5	33.4375
Week 6	26		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	5		53	33.125
Week 7	10		10.5	15	Spdwrk	15	5	55.5	34.6875
Week 8	28		10.5	10	Spdwrk		10	58.5	36.5625
Week 9	28		11.5			20.5	60	37.5
Week 10		11.5		30		11.5	10	63	39.375
Week 11	30	5	10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	11.5		68.5	42.8125
Week 12	32		10.5	10	Spdwrk	20.5		73	45.625
Week 13	34	10	10.5	10	Spdwrk	10		74.5	46.5625
Week 14	36		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	20.5		78.5	49.0625
Week 15	38		10.5	11.5	Spdwrk	20.5		80.5	50.3125
Week 16	40		10.5	10	Spdwrk	20.5		81	50.625
Week 17	42		10.5		Spdwrk	20.5		73	45.625
Week 18	44		10.5		Spdwrk	20.5		75	46.875
Week 19	21		10.5		Spdwrk	30		61.5	38.4375
Week 20	46		10.5		Spdwrk	20.5		77	48.125
Week 21	48		10.5		Spdwrk	10.5		69	43.125
Week 22	20.5		10.5		Spdwrk		20.5	51.5	32.1875
Week 23		11.5			11.5			23	14.375
Week 24	42							42	26.25

Bold = race

Runners’ resources

If you’re looking for a guide to the course of the Paris Marathon, see my Course Preview, which goes into a substantial amount of detail. Similarly, if you’re interested to find out how the race itself went, my race report is here.

Below are some of the things that I’m using to help me through the planning and training for the marathon.

Paris Marathon training schedule

If you are training and want a paper-based way of recording your runs, here is my training log template: Timetable

If you’re entered into the Paris Marathon, you need to get a medical certificate signed by your doctor before your entry is fully accepted. The marathon organisers are quite picky about it – so make sure your doctor fills out the right version of the form, which can be found here.