Marathon PR Training Program – Extramilest

Hi, I’m Floris Gierman, founder of the Extramilest website, Youtube and podcast.

I improved my marathon time from 4 hours 11 minutes to a 2 hours 44 minutes at the Boston Marathon.

My first race was a horrible experience and I hit the wall around mile 18 (29km). In hindsight, I didn’t train right, many of my runs were at high intensity and I often felt drained after every workout. My nutrition was all over the place and I had no strategy for race day, starting out way too fast.

Once I discovered Dr. Phil Maffetone, MAF low heart rate training and cutting out sugars and refined carbs, I started seeing fast improvements.

Things I noticed:

• I started enjoying all my runs, looking forward to the next
• I felt like I could continue running – a feeling I had never experienced before
• Stayed running injury free. Fast recovery after my runs, even at higher training volume
• My paces were getting faster at the same effort level, almost every month
• It was such a great feeling to run at a pretty fast pace and feeling relaxed and in control
• My body felt in sync, I have never felt better, the planets all aligned
• I lost a significant amount of weight and felt great
• In the next race I felt much stronger and suffered much less
• I ran a PR of 76 minutes, improving from 4:11 down to 2:55 on my next marathon

For the past 8 years I’ve written about running and made videos about it, with a million views on my channels so far. It brings me a lot of joy to read success stories from runners all around the world.

Despite many runners experiencing improvements with low heart rate training, I often receive the same questions:

• “Do you have a specific training program I can follow?”
• “How should I structure my base building and marathon specific workouts? “
• “I want to run Sub 3 but I am nervous about losing speed by running at lower HR. Need clarification of exact speed workout details.”
• “I tried low HR training, but have to run so slow or take walk breaks to stay within my heart rate zones.”
• “It’s very challenging to run when it’s hot and humid for long periods where I live.”
• “I have a dream to qualify for the Boston Marathon but can’t imagine racing any faster and holding a specific pace for that long, for example 6:51 min / mile or 4:15 min / km.”

Others struggle with the right nutritional approach and losing weight:

• “I want to run a fast marathon but don’t know how to eat right for Marathon Training. What detailed diet plan should I follow?”
• “It takes a lot of dedication and willpower to lose weight, how to do it to become a faster athlete?”
• “I am struggling to figure out the best way to hydrate and get in calories / sugars during the race.”

I am often asked if I can coach runners to reach their marathon goals.