Micah Herndon on His Marathon Training Regimen

Micah Herndon: I am working toward November 3rd; it’ll be the New York City Marathon. It is the largest marathon in the world, predicted to have over 55 000 runners, and it goes through all five burroughs of New York City.

Since I got invited to the New York Marathon, there’s a runners group out in New York—it’s New York Road Runners—and they got in touch with me and they were able to set me up with their head coach. We keep in contact through text because he’s out of New York, so we keep in contact through text, email and Google Sheet.

So far it’s been nothing but great things with my running coach. He is very knowledgeable and, well, he’s an Olympian himself. He sends me weekly workouts to do. Also the app Strava—it’s a running app—we keep contact on there. On that app or even like text or Google Sheet, I can, you know, upload my workout, my times and also how I felt during the run so I can give him feedback and he can adjust the running schedule from my feedback.

Normally it’s three three or four days of easy runs, like at a slow pace, nothing crazy fast. I do the majority of my running early morning before work. It is cooler during the morning. Again, it goes back to the runner’s high, my therapy—I can start the day off right, on the right foot, on a positive note and run and get in my head clear for the upcoming day.

Before I…you know, training for all my other marathons, I’d always, because I’m really new and green to this running, so I’d just take a bull-headed approach. I’d always try to get 50 miles a week; you know, I’d always just go hard every single day. After doing that for so long, your body breaks down and you have to give your body some rest.

Now, I didn’t realize that until I met my…met the running coach and he’s given me like one day off a week. And then I also have three or four days of easy runs at a slower pace and so it is nice to have him as a coach, [to] give me detailed training plan day to day, as far as the running goes.

Anyway, if it’s an easy day I get like four to five miles, but if it’s a progression run or a tempo interval run, I get six to eight miles. In my long runs I get 10 to 13 miles so…and even the long runs are not a fast pace; it’s just a slow, steady…just to get my joints and my tendons and my muscles used to going for those long distances.