On the cross training days I’ll focus on strength work. The black text is Hal Higdon’s Dopey schedule – I’ve just added this season’s dates for ease of use, along with the dates of the actual races at the end. (I tell the pretty cool story right HERE!) So I’m very curious to see what will happen this year!! Start Date Last year, after running Dopey and taking some time to recover, I tested how far I’d really come with this training schedule by running a local half marathon and realized I’d cut a whopping 24 minutes off of my prior personal best. Last year I mirrored his program more closely in what I tacked on – but this year I’ve realized I have no reason to lose both weekend days to stacked runs this far out, so I’m just doing a steady 3-6-3 mile Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday schedule and a nice long run on Saturday mornings until Higdon’s proper schedule starts in September. So I do Higdon’s program pretty much as it is from its actual starting point on – but I tack a similar schedule with just ONE day of weekend running onto the front.

A good running schedule clears my head, gives my mind room to be as creative as it wants to me, and honestly just all around makes me a better person. Higdon’s program is 18 weeks long as compared to Galloway’s 29 weeks – and while I love that Higdon’s program is straightforward and hits hard with heavy mileage, I get a little antsy around July.

Last year, I used a built out version of Hal Higdon’s program and absolutely loved it. If you’re doing Jeff Galloway’s amazing and incredibly popular program, which you can find RIGHT HERE, you’ll be starting to clock the scheduled miles this week if you haven’t already. We’re just starting July 2022 – how is that possible? – and many of us are starting up our training programs for Dopey 2023.

Download hal higdon marathon plan