Ritz Goes Long

Brad Hudson's Training Plan for Dathan Ritzenhein's Debut Marathon

When Dathan Ritzenhein decided to forgo his final year of college running and turn pro in June 2004, he turned to Boulder, Colorado-based Brad Hudson to direct his training. Besides needing to stay in Boulder to finish classes and be near his wife who was still running for CU, Ritzenhein says, "Brad was also a good fit for me because he knew my background, the training I had done under Coach Wetmore at CU. Brad had done similar training when he was younger because Coach Wetmore was his coach when he was in high school. So I felt that he had a good perspective on how to train me."

After a disappointing Olympics where Ritzenhein was recovering from a stress fracture (an injury that has plagued him several times in his career), he has done well in national and international cross country and track the past two years. He’s not yet put together a full championship season, but he has scored some very big wins and showed considerable promise for a young, developing runner. Last summer, following a strong track season, the 23-year-old surprised the running world by announcing that he would run the ING New York City Marathon on November 5.

While the traditional pattern is to wait until you’re over-the-hill on the track to look longer, Hudson and Ritzenhein decided to go long now to test the waters, leading into another Olympic cycle. Given Ritzenhein’s strength, demonstrated in cross country, the marathon is likely to be his best event. "Marathon training is more moderate, more strength-based" says Hudson, referencing Ritzenhein’s history of stress fractures when he does very intense speed work and observing, "if you’re not a sub-3:50 miler these days, you need to look to the asphalt."

Five Phases

Ritzenhein started marathon training last July, 16 weeks out from the race date. Given that he had a full year of 100-mile weeks under his belt and had just completed a track season where he posted 27:35 for the 10,000 and 13:16 for the 5,000, he ramped-up quickly from a one week break to 58 miles, then 81 and 97. That completed his pure "base" period.

Starting with week four, he began what Hudson calls the "strength" or "muscle stress" phase, which continued for four weeks. This period maintained the mileage (96, 110, 111, 111), while introducing workouts aimed to stress and strengthen running muscles: short, explosive hill climbs, longer hill climbs, tempo and hard progression runs.