20-Week Long Beach Marathon Training Plan

Long Beach, CAOctober 10, 2027

Start around May 23, 2027. The calendar below gives each phase a real date, then the course guidance shows where to make the build specific to Long Beach Marathon.

The Long Beach Marathon starts at 5:30 in the morning, which tells you what the organizers are worried about. The course tops out around 83 feet above sea level and never really climbs, so what decides your race here is October heat on the Southern California coast rather than anything in the terrain.

Race day
October 10, 2027
Start window
May 23, 2027
Runway
20 weeks
Course
Mostly Flat · Loop
Plan choice
Current training

Does this window fit your starting point?

Use the longer window to make the early build calmer, not to add five months of hard training. The plan should begin close to your current load, hold most running easy, and delay the biggest race-specific work until the middle of the cycle.

  • You want a longer foundation phase before marathon-specific training.
  • Your current mileage is steady but below the load you expect to carry later.
  • You prefer gradual long-run growth with regular step-back weeks.
  • You can sustain a five-month routine without turning every week into a peak week.

The 20-week Long Beach Marathon calendar

These dates define the job of each phase. Your current mileage, recent longest run, experience, goal, and available days still decide the actual workouts inside them.

Foundation

Weeks 1–6

May 24, 2027–Jul 4, 2027

Set the routine, grow easy volume gradually, and finish each week with enough control to repeat it.

Build

Weeks 7–13

Jul 5, 2027–Aug 22, 2027

Extend the long run, introduce race-specific terrain, and keep recovery weeks on the calendar.

Peak

Weeks 14–17

Aug 23, 2027–Sep 19, 2027

Complete the most demanding race rehearsals and settle fueling, pacing, shoes, and clothing before taper begins.

Taper

Weeks 18–20

Sep 20, 2027–Oct 10, 2027

Reduce the load, keep familiar running in the week, and let the work from the previous four months show up on race day.

Make the window specific to Long Beach Marathon.

Build general durability first. Add the race's hills, flat sustained running, downhill exposure, heat, or humidity in layers after the weekly rhythm is stable, then make the final long runs the most course-specific.

Read the full race guide

How to train for the Long Beach Marathon

Train for the Long Beach Marathon as a heat race on flat ground. October race mornings here start near 62F with humidity around 86% and the day climbs to an average high close to 79F, so the limiting factor is how well you shed heat, not how strong your legs are. Acclimation in the eight weeks before race day matters more than hill repeats ever will.

In practice that means running some long runs in the warm part of the day on purpose instead of always at dawn. Two or three warm exposures a week for three to four weeks is enough to change how early and how much you sweat. Build your fluid plan around the actual aid station spacing here, which is generous in the second half, with the longest carry being the 2.5 miles between the first two stops.

Then train the flat itself. A course with 470 feet of total climbing and nothing to descend gives your legs the same stride for three or four hours, which is its own kind of damage. Do long runs on genuinely flat ground rather than rolling routes, practice holding goal pace when the terrain never changes, and finish one long run every couple of weeks with three hard miles to rehearse the campus loop late.

Long Beach Marathon course facts

Course
Loop · Mostly Flat · Road/Pavement
Elevation gain / loss
470 ft gain, 462 ft loss
Highest / lowest point
83 ft / 5 ft
Marathon finishers
4,722 in 2025 (large field)
Boston qualifier
Certified Boston qualifying course
Finishers running a qualifying time
4.8% in 2025
Typical race morning
62°F at the start, 86% humidity, clear
Race day high / low
79°F / 58°F on average

Sources

Let your current training decide the actual plan.

Current mileage, recent longest run, marathon experience, goal, and available days determine which plans rank first. After you choose and subscribe, Stride dates every workout through October 10, 2027.

Build My Plan

20-week Long Beach Marathon plan questions, answered.

When should I start a 20-week Long Beach Marathon plan?

The 2027 Long Beach Marathon is scheduled for October 10, 2027, so the 20-week window opens around May 23, 2027. Treat that as the outside edge of the window, then line week one up with the plan's normal weekly rhythm.

Is a 20-week plan long enough for the Long Beach Marathon?

Use the longer window to make the early build calmer, not to add five months of hard training. The plan should begin close to your current load, hold most running easy, and delay the biggest race-specific work until the middle of the cycle. The course does not change the opening load you can handle, so choose from your current mileage and recent longest run before adding race-specific terrain.

How should I prepare for the Long Beach Marathon course in 20 weeks?

Build general durability first. Add the race's hills, flat sustained running, downhill exposure, heat, or humidity in layers after the weekly rhythm is stable, then make the final long runs the most course-specific. Train for the Long Beach Marathon as a heat race on flat ground. October race mornings here start near 62F with humidity around 86% and the day climbs to an average high close to 79F, so the limiting factor is how well you shed heat, not how strong your legs are. Acclimation in the eight weeks before race day matters more than hill repeats ever will.

What if the 20-week Long Beach Marathon window has already started?

Do not double weeks or cram missed mileage into the remaining calendar. Use your current mileage, recent longest run, experience, goal, and available days to choose a plan that can enter at an appropriate point while preserving the taper.

Is the Long Beach Marathon flat?

Yes, genuinely. The Long Beach Marathon runs between roughly 5 and 83 feet above sea level with about 470 feet of total climbing and a net change of around 8 feet. There's no named hill on the course. The difficulty here is October heat and the sameness of unvarying terrain, not elevation.

What time does the Long Beach Marathon start, and why so early?

The marathon starts at 5:30 a.m. at Shoreline Drive and Shoreline Village Drive. The early gun is about heat. Race mornings average near 62F at the line and the day climbs toward an average high close to 79F, so every hour you save at the front of the race is an hour of cooler running.

Put the 20-week window against your actual race.

Each page counts back from race day, maps the 4 phases to real dates, and applies the window to that course and its typical conditions.