In the 100 Day Marathon Plan Review we look at the revolutionary marathon running book by Marius Bakken. Don't buy this book, before you have read this honest review!
Marius Bakken's 100 Day Marathon Plan is a book designed to prepare someone to run a marathon in that amount of time.
Many runners already participate in long distance running, which has its challenges, but hope to compete in or at least complete a marathon.
Marius Bakken's book is designed to help these runners do just that.
It is a revolutionary marathon running book that is taking the running world by a storm. But first, a little about Marius Bakken.
Marius Bakken - Former Olympian and Writer of 100 Day Marathon Plan
In Marius' prime, he was the fastest 5k runner in the world who was not African. He trained with Kenyans in order to learn the methods of their superb training and performance in distance running. Over the years he spent several longer term stints in Kenya.
All added up, he spent about a year in the country in this pursuit. Not a bad strategy, since Kenyans have completely dominated distance running for some years now. Marius also trained with Italy's best runners and studied the Italian methods of preparing for big races.
Italian and Kenyan Training Approaches Put to Use
The most common current thinking in marathon training is to focus on total mileage run. The regimens mostly consist of many easy runs during the week along with one long run. The 100 Day Marathon Plan is structured differently.
The Kenyan approach is to have more runs of higher intensity, thereby building up their lactate threshold and building wind. They have been using this approach successfully for nearly a generation.
Periodization is the forte of the Italians. Their aim is to make a runner perform at his peak at exactly the right time in the training cycle, which of course corresponds to race day.
Bakken's method allows for shorter, faster runs which are built up over time. The goal here is to get the runner exactly prepared for the time the race is scheduled without tiring him out from over-training.
Structure of 100 Day Marathon Plan
The structure of the 100 Day Marathon Plan is to build the runner up in stages of races.
At first the runner does 5k race training, then progresses to 10K and half marathon training, eventually strengthening the runner's stamina and speed to culminate in a marathon. This is not, however, an easy method.
Bakken is well aware from his experience of how hard it is to prepare for a marathon. His method was developed to avoid the runner being too tired from a standard training regimen, and instead to peak right at the time of the race.
He has combined all the things he has learned during his running career from top coaches and the Kenyan and Italian methods to accomplish this.
An interesting part of the program is the run/walk approach to the long runs, where the runner spends about 70% of the time running and the rest walking. The long run is seen as absolute key in traditional marathon training.
Bakken completely agrees with that, but recognises that the long run is a very dominating factor in traditional marathon running programs.
The benefit of the run/walk approach is that you still get your long run in, but that you are a bit fresher for the ensuing training days. Bakken's experience, once again, is that fresher athletes train better and therefore benefit exponentially from this run/walk pace for the longer runs.
How Expensive is 100 Day Marathon Plan
In short, "not very". This wonderful e-book on running which will prepare you for success in a short time is $47. This may be more costly than other running (e-)books. However, I do not think it is too expensive.
One reason for this is that this is top quality material and if you are going to sign yourself up for something as big as a marathon that takes so much out of your life, then good information may cost a little bit of money.
Another reason is that the price does include mentoring from a former olympian in the form of Q&A - Marius is available to answer questions from you during your training.
So you see, the e-book is only a minor part of the whole package. Having a top runner available to help you through the rough spots or to clarify certain points is in itself worth the price.
The 100 Day Marathon Plan is very organized and contains priceless information.
Since it is an e-book, there is no waiting for delivery.
In addition to the e-book and the personal training by Marius you get 25 supplemental videos.
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