Unofficial Pfitz 18 63 Full Marathon plan ICS, CSV, and XLSX
UPDATE = The attached ICS has been updated. A csv and xlsx link has also been added.
I’m not alone in wanting something more difficult than the pfitz 18/55 plan, but not 27% more mileage that the 18/55-70 plan is. So… I spent some time splitting the difference across the two plans, doing as little refactoring as I felt reasonable, and while keeping some of the more intense workouts of the 70mpw plan. I’m not sure if it’s going to work out. Many others say the easier way is to just add a 5m recovery run to the extra rest day of the 55mpw plan. I wasn’t down with that simple approach, as I wanted to up the work out intensity as well.
As background, Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning is a popular full marathon training book with plans ranging from 18 weeks, with a peak of 55 miles, to 85+ MPW week plans. The lowest plan is 18 week 55 peak miles, the next step up, is 18 week, 55-70 mpw plan. Which to me was a too big step up. In Reddit’s advanced running you’ll see many people with a similar feeling for more, but not that much more. Faster road racing has 63 mpw peak plans. I ran a 12/63 half marathon program this summer. Challenging, but very rewarding with multiple race PR’s at 45. Needless to say, the plan and milage was effective for me, and I’m running well. But keep in mind my modification is on the harder side of an 18/63 plan. I could have leaned in a little less to the workouts but I’m coming off a personal best training year, with elevated goals for 2024. If you want an easy 18/63, just add the difference in miles to the 2nd rest day and call it good.
I’m attaching an ICS file if you want to import it for your own planning purposes. If you want to understand what a specific run is, the are all explained in the book buy it. I’m only supplying a modified plan to make it easier for others. I’m not sure it’s the best format to share this at this time, but it’s all I have at the moment. The dates are based around an 18 week plan starting December 11 2023, and finishing the Sunday before Boston Marathon.
Unofficial Pfitz 18-63 Template v2.xlsx
4 thoughts on “Unofficial Pfitz 18 63 Full Marathon plan ICS, CSV, and XLSX”
Thanks for the work on this and for sharing it!
Would you, perhaps, have the plan in a spreadsheet? I’d find that easier to use, though I understand the rationale behind the .ics format.
Thanks again!
I currently only have it in ics format, but it seems like it’s possible to convert ics to csv pretty easy. I do want to make this more flexible, and smart like the 18/55 spreadsheet folks have. I’ll see what I can do.
Updated – Spreadsheet/csv link added.
I will work to improve the sheet, making the sheet more dynamic / responsive, so you can enter a start date, and pace, similar to the 18/55 sheet, but I’ll take more time.
a proper spreadsheet is now available.