Interesting Marathon Training Plan

[VeloVT]

It's a little hard to tell from the way you've described it (without more detail), but here are the questions I would have:

--are you running enough consistently during the week to support your long runs? you can't run a 20 mile long run if your total running mileage that week is 36 miles, for instance, even if you're doing a lot of biking and swimming too.

--cross-training is great but running is what makes you a better/faster runner. Biking makes very different demands and personally, I've found that when I get back into a running program after spending a summer mostly biking, my legs are great and never get tired but my heart and lungs are not quite in shape to sustain the speeds I expect to be able to sustain. Running is harder cardiovascularly than biking, in general. And swimming intervals/biking intervals cannot replace running intervals, if your goal is to run your fastest race. I think if I were to try a program like this, I would be religious about wearing a hr moniter, because it's much harder to keep your hr up at running levels when you're biking, and you will need to if you're going to benefit from the cross-training.

--Is it clear what the goals of each workout are? For instance, increasing VO2max, increasing endurance, increasing lactate threshold... and are they planned or periodized in a logical way that's likely to acheive those goals, or is it sort of a mish-mash?

--Does the volume of the cross-training come close to replacing the volume of the running you WOULD be doing? For instance if you'd normally be running 60 mile weeks, are you biking long enough to stimulate the same increase in endurance (keeping in mind that running for two hours is much more taxing than riding for two hours, for example)?

I guess that's it . I don't mean to sound negative -- I don't know if this kind of program will work well or not. It very well might. I'm a little skeptical, but I think what I would want to do is take a hard look at my goals, figure out what I need to do to acheive the goals, and see if the program measures up from that perspective.