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This 6-week plan from Pete Pfitzinger is built for one situation: you've just run a marathon, and you want to race another one 6 weeks later. Sometimes that's planned. More often the first race didn't go the way you hoped, and the second one is close enough to try again. For an experienced marathoner who came through the first race healthy, it's a workable way to take that second shot. The plan comes from the 4th edition of Advanced Marathoning, which Pfitzinger wrote with Scott Douglas.
Six weeks is an awkward gap. It's too short to build much new fitness and too long to simply rest. This plan handles it sensibly. You recover for 2 weeks, train hard for 2, and ease off for the last 2. The hard sessions are few and each one has a clear purpose. Your job is to be patient for the first fortnight, while your legs ask to get on with it.
Pfitzinger's own advice on injuries applies here. "Don't let the two-week injury become the two-month injury," he said in an interview. This plan is for legs that came out of the first marathon tired, not hurt, because the climb back is steep. Your mileage more than doubles between week 1 and week 3, and the first hard workout arrives in that same week, less than 3 weeks after you crossed a finish line. The book asks for strength work but never puts it on the schedule. And there's very little practice at marathon effort before the second race. If the first marathon left you sore in a way that hasn't faded, or you want the second race to come off a fuller build, this plan asks too much, too soon.
Decent
| Structure | 4 | |
| Prevention | 4 | |
| Flexibility | 4 | |
| Readiness | 4 | |
| Variety | 5 |
The plan starts the week after your marathon, when your legs are still stiff on the stairs. Week 1 is 4 short, very easy runs, with the other days left for rest or cross-training. Week 2 adds a fifth run, a little more distance, and strides. Week 3 is where training returns: 6 days of running, 2 runs of 11 to 14 miles, and the first session of fast repeats. Week 4 is the biggest week, in the mid-50s of miles, with a tune-up race and the plan's only long run, 16 to 17 miles. The last 2 weeks come down toward the second marathon.
Nearly every day on the schedule is a range, such as 4 to 5 miles, so you choose the shorter or longer end.
The plan assumes you raced a marathon in the days before week 1, at the end of a full training build. Week 1 is recovery from that race, so it isn't a starting point for anyone who hasn't run one.
The big week with Pfitzinger
Here is week 4, the biggest week of the plan, about 3 weeks after your first marathon.
MONDAY is a rest day, or cross-training if you'd rather move.
TUESDAY is the hardest workout of the week. You run 6 repeats of 600 meters at your 5K race effort. After each one, you jog for between half and nearly all of the time the repeat took. Easy running before and after brings the day to 8 to 9 miles.
WEDNESDAY is a steady run of 9 to 10 miles, comfortable but with some purpose to it.
THURSDAY is a very easy recovery run of 5 to 6 miles, with 6 strides of 100 meters near the end.
FRIDAY is another very easy run, 4 to 5 miles.
SATURDAY is a tune-up race of 8K to 10K. With a warm-up before and a cool-down after, the whole outing covers 10 to 12 miles.
SUNDAY is the long run, 16 to 17 miles, the longest of the 6 weeks.
That's 6 runs, 1 day off, and 2 hard efforts: Tuesday's repeats and Saturday's race.
Tuesday is familiar by now. You ran the same session 4 days earlier, the first hard workout since the marathon. Then, the opening repeat might have felt like your legs belonged to someone else. This time, you'll know within 2 repeats whether they've come back to you. You'll run it once more in week 5, and if it feels smoother still by then, that's the clearest sign the plan offers that your fitness is back.
The weekend decides the week. Saturday's race shows how much of your fitness survived the first marathon. Sunday then asks you to run farther than you have since that marathon, on legs that raced the day before. The long run isn't meant to be fast. Settle into an easy rhythm and let the miles come. The last few will feel heavy, and learning to stay patient through them is part of what the day teaches.
Watch how the week leaves you. If Tuesday's repeats are a fight from the very first one, or Sunday's legs never loosen up, the first marathon isn't finished with you yet. Your fitness hasn't gone anywhere. Your recovery needs a few more days, and in a plan this short, a few easy days cost far less than pushing through.
Does it build you up smartly?
Between two marathons, a training plan has to shrink. There's no time to build a base, because the first marathon was the base. What's left is to recover from it and remind your body what fast running feels like before the second start line. Training whose emphasis shifts over time tends to beat training that holds one steady load, and 6 weeks leaves room for only one real shift.
Pfitzinger gets the order right. The first 2 weeks are all easy running, with nothing hard on the calendar. Sports scientist Iñigo Mujika, writing about what happens when athletes stop training, says the "negative effects of complete inactivity can be countered by reduced training strategies." In other words, train less rather than stop. Week 1's 4 short, very easy runs, with rest or cross-training on the other days, do exactly that, and they keep the fitness from your first build. Week 3 brings back the longer runs and the first fast repeats. Week 4 adds the tune-up race and the long run. But that's one short block of race preparation, built on fast repeats and a race rather than running at marathon effort. The schedule also doesn't name its stages or say what each one is for.
The repeat sessions are written out completely: the warm-up, the number and length of the repeats, the jog between them, and the cool-down. When the hardest day of the week comes around, you know exactly how it unfolds from the first step to the last.
Does it protect you from injury?
Yes, with two gaps to plan around. The climb back from the first marathon is where this plan asks the most of you, and strength work never makes it onto the schedule.
A plan protects your legs best when it adds mileage a little at a time. The reason is that the body adapts on more than one clock. Blood and muscle energy systems usually adapt within the first few weeks, but tendons need weeks to a few months, and bone needs months.
This plan climbs fast from week to week. Week 1 is about 21 miles. By week 3 it's about 50, a rise of roughly 40% from week 2, and that's the week the fast repeats arrive. Week 4 grows again and adds the tune-up race and the long run. Read generously, the climb is a return rather than new ground: an experienced marathoner has carried this kind of mileage before. Pfitzinger puts it simply: "The body's quite good at getting back to a level it's done before." If your first build reached weeks of 50 miles or more, week 3 takes you back to them rather than somewhere new. But a marathon is a heavy load in its own right, and the body doesn't recover from it evenly. In week 3, your breathing can tell you you're ready while your shins and Achilles are still catching up.
Week 5 gives some of that back. It's noticeably lighter than week 4, with a single hard session and plenty of very easy running. Training load that piles up without relief tends to raise the risk of injury and illness, and this week brings that relief straight after the 2 biggest weeks of the plan.
The plan does protect you in other ways. Every hard session opens with a warm-up, and no two hard days sit side by side. The book defines recovery runs with a heart rate ceiling, and gives a simple test for them: you should finish feeling you've stored up energy, not spent it. It also covers the signs of overtraining and illness, and has a table for coming back from missed time. But if something does go wrong, it has no plan for returning from a specific injury.
Strength training is left to you. The book lays out a full program in its own chapter, but none of it appears on the schedule. That gap lands in the weeks when your legs most need the support, since regular strength training substantially lowers the risk of sports injuries. Olympic marathoner Shalane Flanagan, looking back on a career with few injuries, credited her strength: "I attribute that to being as strong as possible." The plan won't schedule that work, so pencil short sessions onto your easiest days.
The most useful thing you can bring to this plan is attention. A low-grade ache that hangs around from run to run may raise the odds of a full injury, though the early evidence comes from footballers rather than runners. If the first marathon left you with one, the fast climb of week 3 is the wrong place to find out whether it was serious. Some runners treat even mild discomfort as a warning. One Irish club runner told researchers that at that stage "you have planted the little injury seed… the injury is on its way." Weeks 1 and 2, when every run is easy, are the time to notice it.
What happens when you miss a day?
A 6-week plan has very little slack. A lost week costs a sixth of the plan, and there's no later phase to make it up in.
The book's rule for missed time is unusually clear, and in a plan this short it gets strict. Under 10 days missed, carry on with the schedule. Between 10 and 20 days, revise your goal if the race is within 8 weeks. Over 20, revise it regardless. Every day of this plan falls within 8 weeks of the race. So if you lose 10 days, the answer is plain: the second marathon needs a new goal. The book also tells you to ease into your next few sessions of fast repeats if you've missed some.
The effort guidance is solid, with one catch for this plan. The book gives a heart rate range for every kind of run except strides, so you can train by feel and heart rate rather than chasing numbers on a watch. It also shows how to turn a recent race into the efforts the schedule calls for, and your first marathon is a fresh result to work from. But the plan's one fast session asks for your 5K effort, and the book has no chart for finding it. If you haven't raced a 5K lately, you'll have to estimate.
A squeezed week is the other weak spot. The chapter points to the sessions that matter most: the 2 longer runs of week 3, the fast repeats of weeks 3 and 4, the tune-up race and the long run. The book also ranks the kinds of training, and says elsewhere that the long run comes first. But there's no list of what to drop when a week shrinks to 3 or 4 days, so working out the cut falls to you.
Will it get you ready for race day?
Mostly, yes, if the first marathon left you fit. The plan has one gap that matters more for some runners than others.
Your fitness for the second marathon comes from the build before the first. The plan's job is to hold on to it, and it does that well. Weeks 3 and 4 bring the mileage back to the 50s, with fast repeats in both. The tune-up race shows you where you stand. The last 2 weeks ease off into the second race.
The long run is lean. There's one, 16 to 17 miles in week 4, with runs of 11 to 14 miles around it. Marathoners who run longer long runs tend to finish faster, though the evidence is early and only shows a link. Pfitzinger's reasoning is that you ran 26 miles just a few weeks earlier, so one long run is enough to remind your body of the distance.
The gap is practice at marathon effort. There's almost none: 2 miles, in a short run in race week. If your first marathon went to plan, you already know what that rhythm feels like, and 2 miles is a fair reminder. But if the first one went wrong on pacing, say you went out too hard and paid for it, this plan gives you almost no chance to rehearse a better start. Coach and author Matt Fitzgerald, who wrote a book on pacing, puts it plainly: "Like any other skill, pacing requires repetition. No runner gets their pacing right the first time." In this plan, the main place to get some of that practice is the tune-up race, and it may help a little. Runners with more racing behind them tend to pace marathons more evenly, so a tune-up can work as pacing rehearsal, though the evidence is thin. Treat the race as a check on your fitness and your judgment, not a workout that builds speed.
Are the workouts varied enough?
Good training keeps the easy days truly easy and the hard days clearly hard. Trained runners tend to improve more that way than on a steady diet of medium effort.
This plan follows that pattern closely. About 82 percent of the running is easy, and no two hard days sit side by side. Within the easy running there's real range, from very easy recovery runs to steady runs of 9 or 10 miles to runs of 11 to 14 miles. Around them sit a long run, fast repeats, a tune-up race, and a short run with some marathon effort in race week.
Strides show up from week 2 to race week, 6 or 8 of them at the end of an easy run. Each is 100 meters, fast but relaxed, and the whole set takes a few minutes. After 2 weeks of nothing but slow running, they're a gentle way back to speed. Explosive work, such as jumps and sprints, can make runners more economical, though strides themselves haven't been studied directly.
The fast repeats are a single session, 6 repeats of 600 meters, run in weeks 3, 4 and 5, so each one gives you a direct comparison with the last.
The good & bad of training from a book
Advanced Marathoning is purposeful and a little clinical. Every run belongs to a category, and every category has a reason and, apart from strides, a heart rate range. If you like to know why Wednesday is steady and Thursday is very easy, the book tells you.
The plan itself is spread across the book. The schedule sits in a chapter of its own. What each kind of run means is in another, the strength program in another, the taper in another, and the charts for turning a race result into training efforts are at the back. Each day on the schedule lists a range of distances in both miles and kilometres. Expect to flip between sections before the first few hard sessions, until the categories become second nature.
A printed page can't see how your recovery is going, and after a marathon that matters more than usual. If your legs are still heavy in week 2, or a cold costs you 4 days in week 3, the printed weeks stay as they are. The book's rules tell you how to decide, but rearranging the remaining weeks falls to you. Co-author Scott Douglas works that way in his own running: "Some days, I plan to go hard or long but what I encounter once out there merits doing otherwise; other days, I discover I should aim higher, and adjust subsequent days…" After a marathon, expect more of the first kind of day, and let the schedule bend.
Is it right for you?
Run it. That's what the plan asks 19 days after your first marathon, and it rewards the runner whose legs are ready for it.
Look elsewhere. By week 3 you're running 6 days a week with fast repeats, about 50 miles in total.
Look elsewhere. Week 1 is built as recovery from one, and there's only one long run in the plan.
Think it over. 6 weeks can keep the fitness you have, but it can't add much more.
Think it over. There are only 2 miles at marathon effort to rehearse a better plan.
Think it over. The book asks for it, but none of it is on the calendar.
A good alternative with an app
This isn't a plan for the weeks between two marathons. It's for the runner who likes how Pfitzinger trains and whose next marathon is a full build away. Buena Vida's plan for experienced marathoners comes from the same family of training: mostly easy miles, hard days well apart, repeats at 5K and 10K effort, and strides after easy runs.
Closest matchWhy this plan scores higher
- Strength sessions on the schedule every Thursday, from the first week until race week
- Long runs that grow from 10 miles to 20, instead of a single long run
- Fast repeats that change as the weeks go by, from 800 meters up to full miles
- Real practice at marathon effort, with up to 8 miles in a midweek run and 6 inside a 20-mile long run
- A note on every run that says what it's for, how hard it should feel and how to pace it
What the app adds
- No complicated lookup tables. Each day's workout is clear and easy to follow
- Paces worked out from your own fitness, and adjusted automatically as you get stronger
- Miss a run, move a run, and the plan carries on
- Voice coaching through every workout, and runs recorded from your iPhone, Apple Watch, or Garmin
Get more out of your running with Buena Vida
Buena Vida was built by a runner to bring the whole job of training into one place: a plan that fits your schedule and your fitness, coaching on every run, and food targets that keep up with the work you do. Members get personal training & nutrition plans, plus full access to the catalog of pre-written plans for every running goal.
In research studies, runners on plans fit to them improved as much as or more than runners on fixed plans, and fewer of them stalled.
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More plans like this
Each of these plans takes its own route to race day. Effort-based plans, like the Buena Vida plan above, set your hard sessions by feel, so you learn what 10K effort and tempo feel like, and your training paces grow with you as you get stronger. Time-goal plans set every pace from the finish time you're aiming for. Others trade days, weeks, or mileage to fit your life.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the Pfitzinger 6-week multiple marathon plan?
- It's a schedule from Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas, for racing a second marathon 6 weeks after the first. It spends 2 weeks on easy recovery running, 2 on harder training, and 2 easing off into the race.
- Can you run two marathons 6 weeks apart?
- Experienced marathoners often do, if they come through the first race healthy. This plan is built for it. The first 2 weeks are all easy running, and the hard work sits mostly in weeks 3 to 5. If the first marathon left you hurt, wait for another race.
- Do I need the book to run this plan?
- You do. The schedule gives each run a type and a distance, but how hard each one should feel, the heart rate ranges, and the charts for converting a race result are all in the book.
- How many miles a week does the plan run?
- About 21 in the first week, rising to the mid-50s in week 4, then easing off over the last 2 weeks. Every day's distance is given as a range, so your total depends on where in each range you run.
- What do "general aerobic", "medium-long" and "VO2max" mean in the schedule?
- General aerobic is a steady run, a little firmer than recovery. Medium-long is a longer run of 11 to 14 miles in this plan, shorter than the long run. VO2max sessions are fast repeats, here 6 x 600 meters at 5K effort with a jog between them. Recovery runs are very easy, and "+ speed" adds strides.
- Does the plan include strength training?
- Not on the schedule. The book has a detailed strength program in its own chapter, and placing those sessions in your week is your job.
- What if I miss days in the 6-week plan?
- Under 10 days, carry on with the schedule. Miss 10 or more, and the book has you revise your goal for the second marathon.
- Is there a long run in the Pfitzinger 6-week plan?
- One, 16 to 17 miles in week 4, the day after the tune-up race. The other longer runs are 11 to 14 miles.
Research notes
- Shifting training emphasis beats unchanging training
- The body adapts on a staggered clock
- Fixed plans need built-in lighter weeks
- Strength training lowers injury risk
- Niggles often warn of a bigger injury
- Longer long runs go with faster marathons
- Tune-up races: untested, may help pacing
- Keep easy days easy, hard days hard
- Explosive work can make you more efficient