The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 Training

For The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 Training the volume is increasing once again. In the first few weeks, I laid down some benchmarks, but in week 3 it changed. I increased my volume with a majority of the work at easy or steady pace. Week 4 is much the same but with some interesting twists. In this week's post I also talk briefly about the benefits of cutting out alcohol during your training block.

I have broken down my upcoming 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 into the training sessions and what the goals are for the week.

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 Running Sessions

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 running sessions has the usual 6 days of workouts with Monday, once again, being a rest day. The total volume for this week is 98 km's (61 miles). Like week 3, the majority of the work is proper base phase work, as described in my book Marathon Training Strategies. There is about 23% of the work at steady or hard pace, which aligns well to my goals of building volume and consistency while having some intensity.

Monday: Rest Day

Exactly the same as the previous two Monday's, this is a rest day. A rest day should have only low impact activities, if at all possible. I will do my 20 minute bodyweight workout in the morning. However, it is such low impact, that I am still considering it a rest day. Otherwise, if I can get out for a light walk to get some steps in I will do that.

Tuesday: Tempo Run - 13k (8 miles)
Tuesday's Tempo Session to be run as follows:

3k (2 miles) easy effort
5-10 minutes dynamic drills
7k (4 miles) hard effort

These hard effort tempo runs are a great way for me to gradually build my speed endurance. This type of run will greatly impact the results from any of my upcoming benchmarking sessions.

Wednesday: 17k (10 miles) Double Session Easy Runs
This is the first double session of the week. 10k (6 miles) easy run in the morning and a 7k (4 miles) easy run in the evening. The double sessions help me to build my volume without overloading a morning or evening with a single session.

Thursday: 13k (8 miles) Easy Run With 4k (2 Miles) Steady
This is a run designed to help me finish strong. The last 4k I will increase the pace to a steady pace. I will often push even a little harder on the last 1-2k if I'm feeling strong.

Friday: 5k (3 miles) Easy Run in AM + 7k (4 miles) Steady Run in PM
My usual Friday morning Social run is something I'll be keeping on a weekly basis, but to add to that, I have a 7k steady run in the evening.

Saturday: 11k (7 miles) Tempo Run
I will execute this session as follows:
3k easy + 5k hard effort +3k easy (2 mile easy + 3 miles steady effort + 2 mile easy)
This is another hard effort.

Sunday: 32k (20 miles) - Long Slow Distance Run (LSDR)
I won't preach this week about the benefits of the LSDR as you all know my opinion by now. This week I have my first 32k run (20 miler) on the plan. Getting to this point by week 4 opens up plenty of training opportunities that I find beneficial.

Strength & Conditioning

For the 2:49 Project Week 4 training strength and conditioning routine I have increased the reps to 40 per exercise. I actually did this in week 3 as you will read in the Week 3 Update.

40 reps push ups
40 crunches
90 second plank
40 squats
40 dead bugs (each side)
40 bicycle crunches (each side)
40 lunges

Repeat these until you hit 20 minutes. I then finish the routine off with:

40 reps close hands push ups

Yoga

I perform a 20 minute yoga for runners routine from YouTube 3 days per week. I have been doing this once during the week and twice on the weekends. It is working out better for me with this schedule.4

My Relationship with Alcohol

OK, I'm not here to preach, but rather to discuss the things that I do for my training. I used to be a fairly consistent drinker of beer, wine and whisky. There was nothing I liked better on a weekend than winding down with something to relax and chill out, and particularly the evening after a long Sunday run. Things changed a couple of years ago and I have never looked back.

I suppose I never had a particularly healthy relationship with alcohol. Every couple of months I would over do it and wake up full of regret. On those mornings when I woke up with a bad hangover or just did something stupid the night before, this would be followed by 3-4 days of depression. This was not a great prescription for successful running. In February 2022, I made the decision that I simply couldn't drink anymore and I haven't had a drink in two and a half years. I can honestly say I have never woke up and said, "I wish I was drinking last night."

The Benefits of Not Drinking Alcohol While Marathon Training

The benefits of quitting drinking has been life changing for me. This is most obvious in my marathon times, but life in general is much better. To keep this on-point though, I'll give you my top four areas of training that quitting alcohol has benefited.

1. Sleep

Anyone who knows me, knows I have some relatively unorthodox routines. I like to get to bed early and get up early. When I was drinking, getting out of bed was something I simply didn't want to do. If I had a few drinks the night before, I preferred to lie in my bed and would only reluctantly get moving. These days, I get up when I wake up and look forward to the day ahead. I am full of energy and refreshed. Most importantly, I sleep amazingly well. I can now function quite happily on 6-7 hours of sleep because the quality of sleep is so much better than it used to be. My head hits the pillow at 10pm and the next thing I know is that it's 4:30am and time for my 20 minute bodyweight routine.

2. Weight

This benefit is two-fold. When I began my weight-loss lifestyle it was recommended to not drink my calories. That usually meant things like fizzy drinks, juice, and yes, alcohol. So there is the calorie benefit of not adding excess calories to the daily intake. On a weekend, six beers could add almost 700 calories or more. The same goes for wine and whisky.

But here's the hidden benefit, not only was I not getting the calories from the alcohol, but the food I would inevitably consume while drinking, or when I had the buzz on. Those calories could easily be in the thousands per night. The benefit or cutting out alcohol from a weight standpoint were obvious for me.

3. Overall Physical and Mental Health Improvements

With better sleep and less junk food in my life, my overall health has benefited. This isn't limited to physical health as I've never been happier or more content than since I quit alcohol. The difference is actually quite remarkable. It takes so much more to get me aggravated these days. My stress levels are down and I'm much more tolerant of things in general. Stress and anxiety has been reduced to a very low level in all aspects of my life.

4. Energy

As I mentioned earlier, I have so much more energy these days. From the moment I wake up in the morning until I hit that point at about 10pm when I start to feel tired, I am full of energy. Motivation doesn't seem to be an issue either. I have things to do and I just do them. This includes running and strength work too.

I'm not recommending everyone stops drinking alcohol altogether. What I do recommend is that if your target marathon is important to you, 16 weeks of abstaining from drinking will only help. So far, it has helped bring my time down from 3:06 to 2:54 all things being equal.

The 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 Training Summary

In summary, the 2:49 Marathon Project Week 4 Training is a rather straight forward week. With the exception of 2 double sessions it follows a similar pattern of roughly 80/20 easy/hard breakdown. All I can say is I'm looking forward to the week ahead.

Can You Follow the 2:49 Marathon Project?

I accidentally pushed out the week 1 video on the wrong YouTube channel. The correct channel is this one here: JMRunCoach

Daily updates will be shared on my Instagram account and Tiktok account. Weekly updates will be in longer form on YouTube, my Facebook page, and here on the A Heart for Running blog. Also, for anyone who wishes to get email updates, please subscribe to the mailing list at the bottom of this page and the weekly updates will be delivered directly to your inbox. Ensure to check your junk box and allow the emails from here through.

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Weekly Metrics:

Weekly Metrics will be updated on Monday's Post.

Previous Weeks:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16