LHR Podcast: Addressing Hansons Marathon Method Myths

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Transcript:
Hey everyone, welcome back to the LHR podcast. It’s been a while. We’ve been revamping a lot of stuff behind the scenes on our website and things like that. fortunately the podcast took a little bit of a backseat, but I think we’re back now. I think we’re going to be in a position where we can do things much more regularly. when I was going back and looking at some stuff, you know, we got some pretty old, it’s a pretty old content that probably needs to be updated. So,

Be on lookout for that, just some new updates on some old topics, maybe more just really improving the quality of the content. I know some of the audio and the older stuff that we have out there is pretty rough at points. So trust me, I know. I’m aware. That was a long time ago. And things have definitely improved since then. So.

Be on the lookout for that, but we’re going to start off today with kicking some things off with spelling some myths of Hanson’s Marathon Method, which if you don’t know, my name is Luke Humphrey. I am the owner of Luke Humphrey Running. I’ve been coaching since 2006 and myself and alongside a lot of the assistant coaches that work for me, we’re members of the Hanson’s Distance Project for a number of years. have a couple.

current athletes still there. And then I am the author of the Hanson’s Marathon Method book series. you know, we’ve been not the sometimes we get confused with being the authors of the program, but that is definitely not me. That is for sure, Kevin and Keith Hanson, which I guess I’ve just kind of become a spokesperson for over the years. But, you know, our a lot of our coaching is based off of what Kevin and Keith have taught us. And

And as the author of the Hansen’s Marathon Method, I get to field a lot of those questions. So what I want to do today is just kind of discuss really the three biggest things I get with people who are kind of on the fence with Hansen’s Marathon Method. Maybe they have some friends putting some things in their ears. Definitely some people, some influencers and bloggers and YouTubers with their own take on things, which I would.

agree with some of it not necessarily all of it. think there’s some things that need to be clarified. think when you see when I see people say or write certain things it’s kind of clear to me that they didn’t necessarily look at the whole program they just looked at a PDF file of the plan and didn’t really look at what we explain in the book. So hopefully this will help you.

make a decision, whether it’s not to be with us, we just want you to be in the best program for you, but we do feel that this will help this program, the Hanson’s Marathon Method will help a lot of people reach their goals, whether it’s to run, you know, sub three hours or just complete their first one, you know, as best that they possibly can. And, you know, whether that’s, you know, three, thirty, four or five hours, we definitely feel like we can we can get you there.

So let’s jump right into it. The first one that I get a lot is that it’s a low mileage or less is more type of program. And I can attest to you that that is not the case. Even VeloPress, who published Hanson’s Marathon Method books, they were kind of on that train at the start as well. They wanted a title to kind of reflect that. I know that when Kevin and Keith

gave me the opportunity to write the book, we saw it and we’re like, I don’t really know if that’s the best route to go. And we kind of explained to them, you really have to look beyond certain aspects of the program and you’ll realize that it’s definitely not a less is more. You’re running six days a week and even though the long run is only 16 miles, you’re putting in…

a significant amount of mileage and really more miles than a lot of programs you’ll find, you know, free programs on the web or, you know, what you see in other books and things like that. So you really have to take a whole 30,000 foot view of what the program’s really saying and not be so hyper-focused on one aspect. And so, as I mentioned, I think that, I think that people get stuck on that 16 mile thing pretty easily, because that’s what, you know, that’s the point that

people see the most. Like that’s, you know, that’s what was marketed in the book. And that’s what people will first bring up is that the long run is only 16 miles. And like I said, I think people get really fixated on that. And it’s not, it’s not the whole program. And they tend to put blinders on what they just see that they don’t really look at, you know, what you’re doing before and after that. And so I think you really have to

look at what you’re doing leading up to that 16 mile long run and then what you’re doing after that. And so it really becomes a point of balance and being able to fit a lot more stuff into a program than just putting a hyper focus on the long run. And then I think too, where people get fixated is they will look at like the first two weeks of the program and more so the beginner program.

a little bit less in with the advanced program because you jump into certain things a little bit quicker in the advanced program. But in the beginner plan for sure, you have several weeks where it’s a very gradual buildup. And I agree that that, when you look at that, yes, you would kind of look at that like, oh, it’s not really a whole lot. But once you actually get into the program beyond that first few weeks and we start doing some things, then I think that…

it becomes clear really quick that it’s not a less is more, not a less is more plan. So, you know, I’m going to talk more about the 16 mile long run in a second, but the truth is with HMM, you definitely put in a significant amount of miles. Like I said, you’re building to six days a week. You’re running two to three, you know, what we call SOS days per week, which, you know, two workouts in a long run. And then your easy volume is fairly significant with

You know, being over an hour for a lot of people on your easy runs. so it, the mileage will add up pretty quickly. And, know, what we have found that it’s not necessarily the volume that gets to people. It’s when the intensity is too much for a person. And so, but we do, I think a really good job of just putting that into context in the book and trying to explain and, know, whether you see on these podcasts and things like that, where we really put a lot of emphasis on.

appropriate intensities given the day. And I think if people can kind of lock into that mentality, they not only survive the training, but they actually thrive with the training. And so it’s hard for sure, but it’s incredibly doable when you go beyond what you just see in highlights and what other people are saying about, the book or whatever, but haven’t really put it into practice completely. And so you can, you,

can do a lot more than you think you can. And we hold your hand and do that for you with the book, with everything on our site and everything like that. So I would take a little bit deeper dive into some of that stuff and see if it’s a right fit for you. Moving on from that, though, I think the second point is that 16 miles is the longest you’re allowed to go. And I think the biggest thing you have to clarify here, Kevin says this all the time when Kevin was doing

Kevin, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time with Kevin when he was doing a lot of the programs and, know, this all comes back from Kevin and Keith wanting to do a training program for people training for the Detroit Marathon, which we’re in the Detroit Metro area. Their four stores are in the Detroit Metro area. And, you know, obviously the Detroit Marathon is a big part of the running community around here. And so they really wanted to do a good program for that. you know, they were doing clinics and hosting clinics in the stores and that’s kind of how.

I got started with kind of looking at that after I finished my master’s degree at Oakland University. And they said, well, you’d be a good fit. And their kids were getting older and they wanted to kind of move away from that so they could spend more time with their family. And so I was like 23, 24 at the time. And so it made good sense for me to move into that. But anyway, he would say that it’s not about 16, it’s not about 20. Neither one of those numbers are.

are magic numbers, right? They’re not the end all be all, you know, as I’ve coached, you know, I’ve been coaching since 2006. I’ve seen a lot of things in those, those two decades where, know, you’ll see people hit the wall at 16 miles and then you can have people not hit the wall at all. you know, and I think you get stuck on that where you see so really everywhere you look, it’s like, well, the 20 miles race begins at 20. It’s true.

Yes, the race, it’s almost like your halfway point is almost like the 20 mile mark, right? But it’s not, it’s not a given and it’s not a, prerequisite to being able to run a marathon that you can cover a 20 mile long run in your training, especially if it’s a 20 mile long run that takes you four hours to do, or, you know, you focus so much on that 20 miler that you really aren’t doing much the rest of the week. And so.

That’s really where I really feel like Kevin and Keith were coming from with that. It’s like, we kind of have a rule 25 to 30 % of your weekly volume and kind of combine that with three hours, right? So for the vast majority of people that we work with, 16 miles fits well within that 25 to 30 % of their volume and that three hour rule. But I would also say too that if I’ve had a person who’s run

that’s gone through the program a couple times and they’ve done really well, they’ve managed the training pretty well, they’ve seen success, then I have no problem moving them up to 18, 20 mile long runs because, especially with the advanced program, you’re peaking at about 60 miles a week, little over maybe, depends on how much you warm up and cool down on a couple of days, but you’re right around that 60 mile a week mark in your peak. So, you know.

If you just stayed at that 60 miles, a 20 mile long run would be right about 33%. So if you are up to like 65 miles a week with that 20 mile long run that moves it down to be under 30 % of your long run and you’re running it around three hours, then yeah, I really don’t have a problem with 20 mile long runs. I give a lot of 20 mile long runs out to people.

who are in similar situations, right? But we’ve built through that. And so that would be my advice is if you’ve never done one, that kind of volume, two, you’ve never gone through a structured plan such as this, I think you’re really going to see a lot of success with just sticking to what the plan is. I I’ve had men and women all run well under three hours just following the advance plan as written in the book. I’ve even had…

I remember being at a race and a young lady actually told me she qualified for the Olympic trials and she just followed the book. So it is definitely enough plan to run very fast. It’s really, you know, I think people get stuck into this situation. Like I love mileage, but I think people get stuck into this kind of concept where you have to be 70, 80, 90 miles a week in order to run, you know, 240 in the marathon. I don’t think that’s the case. You can definitely get there.

But I feel like if you’ve never done that kind of intensity in this kind of structure, this is plenty of schedule. And on the other hand, if I can build you in the beginner plan up to around 50 miles a week with not really putting a ton of emphasis on being super fast on things, just being consistent there is going to get you a long ways into reaching your goals. So that’s really how you have to, we look at it and I know it’s a tough sell because you’ve just been sold that that 20 mile long run has to happen. You have to get two, three of those in.

But it really comes down to what that 16 miles looks like. And so as I mentioned in the first point, the 16 mile is coming at the end of a week where Thursday you’ve done a long tempo run where if you’re at that point, you’re doing anywhere from eight to 10 miles at marathon pace. So you throw in a warmup and cool down. You’re looking at anywhere from 10 to 14 miles on Thursday of a run.

pretty good intensity, right? You’re at marathon pace for the vast majority of that. And then you throw in an easy day on Friday, and then Saturday, you’re doing a long, not a long run, but a longer easy run of eight to 10 miles. So in theory, if you’re running Saturday morning, you do that eight to 10, and then you turn around and run the same time for your long run on Sunday, you’re putting in 24 to 26 miles within a 24 hour period. It’s really significant amount of volume. So while it’s not,

all of your weekly mileage, you still put a significant portion of your weekly volume over the weekend, right? So if you’re at 20, 26, you’re probably like 34, 35, 40 % of your weekly volume over Saturday and Sunday, but you’re spreading, know, you’re still 60 % of your volume is coming over the next next five days after that, but it’s a significant chunk. And then after that 16 mile, you basically, basically get Monday to recover and then you’re expected to do a workout on.

on Tuesday. So again, it comes back to that whole aspect of balance. We’re balancing everything out. But if you just put all that focus on a 20 miler, you’re probably resting before, you’re probably resting after. And then when are you doing your next workout? Maybe Wednesday or Thursday. And so now you’ve had three or four days to recover and that’s almost too long, right? And so you really limit yourself on how much you can actually fit in on a weekly basis. So

If you can mentally get past that point of being, it’s only 16 miles, that it’s 16 significant miles, you can buy into it a lot, a lot better. then, like I said, people have had a ton of success off of just following the plan as is. So just keep that in mind as you’re looking at whether or not this is a good fit for you. Yeah, so.

The third point I would say is that the weekly schedule has to be how it is in order to

rich cumulative fatigue. And if you’re not aware, you know, the whole premise of the HMM is like we build into what is called what Kevin and Keith call cumulative fatigue, which is I always just like I describe it in the book as

your general sense of tiredness, fatigue, but you’re still hitting workouts fine. You actually feel good once you start doing the workouts, even though you warm up your mind. man, I really don’t want to do this. But it’s a lot like the marathon where things are just generally tired, but you’re still able to perform. Right. And so, and I was looking at this. So you see the term resiliency come up a lot now in the endurance and endurance field, whether it’s cycling or

I’ve seen a lot in running where they talk about endurance resiliency or distance resiliency. And I think that’s kind of the closest I’ve seen as an official term to kind of describe it. But that’s really where they’re talking about is like, even though you’re tired, you’re able to perform and you’ll be able to perform a task at a specific pace. like, whereas you might fade and still kind of technically cover the ground.

where resiliency would come in is you’re tired, but you’re not fading, right? And that’s where we’re really looking at. so people look at how the schedule is in the book or pull the plan off of the internet or whatever. And you see that Tuesday’s a workout, Thursday’s a workout and then Sundays you’re in long run. And so a lot of people will say that is the only way that has to be. I would look at that as kind of the template of really the best fit model. And if you follow me for any long time, I really talk about

the plans in the book being kind of a best fit model, right? Like a bell curve almost, because if I’m in the middle of that, I can cover, if I go two deviations either way, I’m covering the vast majority of people, right? And that’s what you have to look at when you’re looking at a plan like this is where, okay, this is a plan that if you follow it, you’re in one of those, know, for some people it’s going to be slightly too much plan. For some people it’s going to be slightly not enough plan, but you’re still going to be very successful by fitting into that.

plan, right? For that general plan, it will fit, you know, 85, 90 % of the people, right? And that’s where you’re looking at. So if somebody just picks up the book and they follow the plan, I feel like there’s a 90 % 85, 90 % chance if they follow the way it is, and all the guidelines involved with it, they’re going to probably be pretty successful. So but you can always tweak it to fit your needs. Like I know schedules come up and

A lot of people don’t like having a long run on Sunday, which is fine. So the most popular changes I make is having Monday as the rest day. People a lot of times want to finish that week and just have the Monday be a reset, which I don’t really have a problem with. So all they would do is really swap Monday and Wednesday around. So Wednesday would no longer be the off day. Wednesday or Monday would be the easy day.

Wednesday would be an easy run, which a lot of people actually find they recover better between that Tuesday and Thursday workout having a nice easy run on Wednesday. So that’s always an option that we’ve done for a lot of people over the years. Other people will go Monday, Thursday, Saturday to kind of get another day of recovery in between those two workouts. The only thing I would say with that is that you then need to

Make sure that you move that longer easy run to the day before, which would be Friday. So you will do kind of set yourself up for, you know, having a temple run, a longer easy run, and then the long run. So that can be a little trickier, but I’ve never seen too many problems with that. The other one is a Tuesday, Friday. Both of those just revolve around giving themselves an extra day recovery between the Tuesday and the…

the temple run on Thursday. So you can also do that. So Tuesday, Friday, Sunday, again, you want that longer, easy run in between. Just make sure you’re on the easier side of that. So you don’t have to push the pace on that. Just make sure you’re just covering ground and then go into that long run on that Sunday. So like I said, the biggest thing is that just look at that 18 week plan as a best fit template. If.

If you move things around, keep it consistent, right? So if you always want Monday as a rest, if you want Monday as a rest day, keep Monday as your rest day, right? Try not to move things around a ton of times, right? I get sometimes schedules come up, you have to switch things around, not a problem, but like every week, if you’re switching things around, it just usually just leads to inconsistency. And that’s the one thing we really wanna keep is consistency. Keep the longer easy day before the long run. And then,

I would try to avoid back-to-back workouts. So I’ve seen a lot of people try to do a tempo on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. I know Hal Higdon does that. I’m not bad mouthing him at all because he’s helped a ton of people get into marathoning. I personally think it’s overload for a lot of people. It’s the true definition of the weekend warrior. We’re just going to make that weekend count for as much as we possibly can. And I think…

I think if you have the mindset of just surviving the training and covering the ground, it probably will. But from a performance standpoint, I don’t necessarily agree with that. And that’s just personal preference. feel like if people are doing that more often than not, they tend to break down much, much quicker. then you get to a point where you’re fine, fine, fine, and then all of a sudden you’re hurt. And usually that happens at the worst possible time where you’re in the

peak training and now you’ve got to take time off and now you’ve got to adjust marathon goals and things like that. So I just try to avoid it. But those are the three big things that I see that I’ve gotten over the years since writing the books, the questions I usually get. So hopefully this clarifies some issues for you. If you’re on the fence with Hanson’s Marathon Method, one, you can get the book, right? Either you can buy a used copy on Amazon if you want. Usually it’s nine to…

nine to 15 bucks on Amazon. You can pick it up pretty cheap, probably cheaper on Kindle. I like a paperback. I feel like most people like the paperback of that book though. Like I said, library might have it. I don’t care if you get it. I don’t care if you buy it from me, but I would find a copy of that. I I’d love if you bought it from me, you know, it’s not. Bigger thing is just getting all the information, right? So get a copy of the book somehow.

Look at our blogs, join our community for free. I’ll have links for everything below. Don’t hesitate to ask questions because there’s a lot, there’s a big community that can help with that. And if you want testimonials, ask, right? Because there’s a lot of people who didn’t believe in it and just said, you know what, I’m just going to give it a try. And they were very successful. know, biggest thing though is finding a copy of the book.

and going through the whole thing. Cause I know you can get PDFs for free from the Hanson’s Running Shop online everywhere. You can get stuff, but you need the complete picture before you, before you make a full decision. and lastly, just, just recognize these aren’t easy plans, but training for a marathon shouldn’t be a super easy thing. Like it’s, should be a test for you, a test of your willingness to commit a test of your fortitude, a test of learn how to train.

get into something where you’re not comfortable, right? And if you do it right, it will be incredibly rewarding. So they’re not easy plans. They’re not meant to be easy plans. But the marathon is not easy either. So just keep that in mind. If a plan is super easy, you’re probably not going to be overly prepared for what you’re going to face on race day. And so just consider that. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking, if you’re looking at us, if you’re looking at other people, you know, just keep that in mind with

with how that looks. If somebody’s just fitting something to fit what you actually want, not necessarily what you need, it’s kind of a red flag. So just keep that in mind as you move forward. But I appreciate you guys listening to me. And I hope to hear from you. And I will talk to you next time. All right, take care. Bye bye.

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