Six Foot Track Marathon
training plan
An adaptive trail ultra plan for a one-way course on trail, run in warm March conditions, built around the three things Six Foot Track actually asks of you: cut-off times, a qualifying standard and quad-wrecking descents. Fourteen weeks written two at a time, from what you actually did in the two weeks before, and rewritten the moment you travel, get ill or something starts hurting.
This page describes the race and what its course, climate and date ask of a build. On Pro, the plan itself is written for you, from your experience, your weekly hours and your date, so two athletes entered in this race get different plans.
Free plan available · Paid from $7.50/mo billed annually · iOS, Android & web
Three demands, three answers
A generic 14-week trail ultra plan gets you to the start line. It has no idea about cut-off times, a qualifying standard or quad-wrecking descents.
On the ground, Six Foot Track is a one-way course on trail. It is usually held in March, when it is usually warm enough that the last hour costs more than the arithmetic says it should. So over a trail ultra, the cost is that there is no second lap to correct on, and the heat is a pacing tax you either trained for or pay in full on the day. There will be one to ten thousand starters out there with you.
- Profile
- Point-to-point · trail
- Usual conditions
- March · warm
- Race season
- Fall, southern hemisphere
- Field
- Mid-sized · one to ten thousand
The clock is a competitor
Intermediate cut-offs mean you have to reach specific points by specific times, usually after the section that hurt most. Slower runners can be pulled while still moving well.
The plan works from the cut-off structure you enter, builds the durability to hold pace late, and rehearses aid-station discipline so time is not lost standing still at Six Foot Track Marathon.
You are chasing a time as well as a finish
A qualifying standard changes the whole shape of the build. There is a specific number, it is not negotiable on the day, and going after it with training that does not support it is the most common way to miss it.
Set the goal time and the plan works backwards from the paces it implies, rehearses them inside the long session, and tells you honestly whether your recent training supports them. It will not flatter you.
The descending is free speed you pay for later
Losing height early feels like a gift. It is eccentric loading, and the bill arrives with about a quarter of the race left, as quads that stop answering. Most blow-ups on a course like this come from tissue damage. Fitness is rarely the cause.
Descending reps from the first block, and long sessions that put the downhill early. Your legs meet the damage in training, well before the point of Six Foot Track where it decides your day.
Getting in, and getting to the line
Adaptlete has no involvement in entry, allocation or ballots for any race. This is what the format asks of your planning.
Qualifying time
A qualifying time is the gate, which means the race that matters most is usually the one before this one. Fourteen weeks back from March puts the first week in early December.
Mid-sized field
A mid-sized field clears inside the first mile, so the pace you settle into is genuinely yours, and a one-way course means getting to a start you cannot walk home from. Over a trail ultra, that is a long time to be running somebody else's race.
Trail
Trail, so the long sessions have to happen on ground like it. Footing, poles, descending and eating while you move are skills, and none of them are learnable on a treadmill in the last two weeks. The peak week puts a progression effort on it, months before March.
You will be training through the southern summer
Work backwards and a fourteen-week block for a March race opens around early December, running December through to March. That is the southern summer, and it is the half of the job most plans never mention. Long sessions get pushed earlier and earlier to dodge the heat, the calendar fills up with weekends away, and two weeks of vacation land somewhere in the middle of the block whether the plan wants them or not. And the last block lands in March, with point-to-point ground, warm conditions and a mid-sized field waiting at the end of it.
So the plan expects the interruption instead of pretending it will not happen: sessions move to the cool hours, and two weeks away is rewritten around what you will actually have, whether that is a hotel gym, a rental bike, or a pair of shoes and nothing else. Whatever the season takes out of two weeks, the work for cut-off times, a qualifying standard and quad-wrecking descents is what the rebuild puts back first.
- Weeks 1-6 December-January early starts and heat; the long sessions move to the cool hours
- Weeks 7-8 January-February
- Weeks 9-14 · peak and taper February-March
Months assume Six Foot Track keeps its usual March slot and that you take the full 14 weeks. Adaptlete builds from the date you enter.
A real week from a Six Foot Track build
This is the shape of the biggest week in 14: 5-6 sessions a week, 8H 46M of training, and one session that matters more than the rest. Two of them are here because of this course and not the distance: a progression effort for the point-to-point profile, and a heat session for conditions that are usually warm. The key session itself is written for quad-wrecking descents. For a March race, week 9 lands in February. Your version is written from your hours, your history and how far out you are.
- Every session says what it is for, in plain language
- Intensity you can scan down the week without reading
- Move any session to any day without breaking the block
| Day | Intensity | Session | Distance and duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| MON | Rest | Rest | |
| TUE | Zone 4, threshold | Progression effort: 3 × 12 min, each one quicker than the last | 11 km1H00 |
| WED | Zone 2, easy | Easy trail run | 10 km55' |
| THU | Zone 3, steady | Strength: step-downs & eccentric calf | 45' |
| FRI | Zone 1, recovery | Heat session: easy, in the warmest part of the day | 6 km36' |
| SAT | Zone 3, steady | Long trail run: descents loaded into the first half | 32 km3H30 |
| SUN | Zone 2, easy | Time on feet: hike with vert | 13 km2H00 |
Something will go wrong.
That is the part we built for.
Nobody finishes a fourteen-week build without missing a week, and December through to March is a long time to stay lucky. The plans that fail are the ones that carry on as if nothing happened.
A work trip in week 8
Hotel treadmill, nothing else? Those days get rewritten around it.
Flu in January
The block rebuilds and ramps you back. Nothing is deleted.
A niggle at week 10
Loading comes off it, the rest of your week stays. And go see someone.
Questions people actually search
How many weeks do I need to train for Six Foot Track Marathon?
Fourteen weeks is the usual build for a trail ultra like Six Foot Track, at 5-6 sessions a week. Counted back from a March race that opens the block around early December and runs it December through to March. Coming from a lower base, give yourself longer. With fewer weeks than that the plan compresses. It builds what it can from where you are, protects the work for cut-off times, a qualifying standard and quad-wrecking descents first, and tells you plainly what it had to leave out.
When should I start training for Six Foot Track Marathon?
The date does not move: March 13, 2027. Count back fourteen weeks from it and that is when a full-length trail ultra build opens: around early December for a March race, December through to March. If you are reading this later than that, the plan fits the block into what is actually left and names the sessions it dropped. Entry runs on a separate clock (places here are held behind a qualifying time), and the training deadline is the one you control.
What is the Six Foot Track Marathon course actually like?
A one-way course on trail, and in March it is usually warm enough that the last hour costs more than the arithmetic says it should. So the cost is that there is no second lap to correct on, and the heat is a pacing tax you either trained for or pay in full on the day. That combination is what the fourteen weeks are built around: cut-off times, a qualifying standard and quad-wrecking descents. The trail ultra on its own would give you a completely different plan.
Do I need a qualifying time to enter Six Foot Track Marathon?
Places are usually held behind a qualifying time, which means the race that decides your March is normally the one before it. Adaptlete treats the qualifier as its own target with its own build, then rolls into the fourteen-week trail ultra block for Six Foot Track on point-to-point trail. We have no involvement in the standards or the entry process and cannot influence either.
What kit do I need for Six Foot Track Marathon?
Trail, so the long sessions have to happen on ground like it. Footing, poles, descending and eating while you move are skills, and none of them are learnable on a treadmill in the last two weeks. We publish no climb total for this course, because we hold none we would stand behind. What we can say is that it is point-to-point ground. Over fourteen weeks the plan puts the long sessions on ground like it and asks you to use the same pack, poles, shoes and food you intend to use in March. Check the organizers' own mandatory kit list. It is theirs, it changes, and we do not publish it.
How do I handle the heat at Six Foot Track Marathon?
March in Katoomba, Australia is usually warm, and across a trail ultra that is a pacing problem before it is a toughness problem. The plan builds exposure gradually over the fourteen weeks instead of in race week (the peak week carries a heat session) and it checks your goal pace against what those conditions realistically allow. This is training guidance, not medical advice: if heat affects a condition you have, speak to a professional first.
Is this an official Six Foot Track Marathon training plan?
No. Adaptlete is an independent training-plan service with no affiliation to the organizers of Six Foot Track Marathon, and none is implied. We name the race because the plan is built around what its course, its format and its date ask of you.