And you can call a recipe your own.

Those are words I vividly remember from a cooking class I took that was taught by Jeff Blank, may he rest in peace. Jeff said, “you know, if you change three ingredients in a recipe you can call it your own.”

As running frequently immitates life, I’ve changed three ingredients in my usual marathon training block. Run training can and should be very personalized and systematic, but also very fluid and open to change.

Without getting all philosophical about it, here are the three things ingredients I’ve changed in this block building up to Boston 2026:

  1. Volume. I’ve simply added more running for more weekly mileage. I’d probably average 50 miles per week in previous training cycles, topping at 55 mpw on peak weeks. Now I’m shooting for 60 mpw. Most of those miles are slow and easy.
  2. Five peak weeks. In the last ~10 marathons I’d build 3 peak weeks in the second half of the macrocycle. I started this cycle with a strong enough base that I built out five peak weeks, all culminating with a 20+ mile long run on Sundays. This ties into #1 above in incorporating more volume, but also just training my body and mind to 20+ consecutive miles in preparation for the marathon. There is a down week between each peak week.
  3. Two-a-days. Wednesdays have historically been a long(er) easy run, bookended by a hard workout on Tuesday and a tempo run on Thursday. Usually a Wednesday would be mileage between 4-10 miles. I’ve now changed that to where it’s still a slow and easy run, but I do one in the morning at my usual run time, and one in the evening after a full day of work and life. Presently (9 weeks out from race day) I’ll run 5 miles in the a.m. and 5 miles in the p.m. That evening run is hard, after a full day, especially considering I’m on my feet most of the day and my job can often be labor intensive.