Marathon training – a guide to getting it right – Runner’s World (UK)

So you’re training for a marathon. Here, coaches, experts and marathon greats share their tips on how to train like a pro.

Run easy on most days

On most of your runs –especially the long ones– resist the urge to push; instead, maintain an easy pace, advises running coach Janet Hamilton. You should be running at a pace that allows you to have full-sentence conversations with your running partners. Easy running reduces the impact on your body and staves off fatigue, enabling you to log more miles with less risk of picking up an injury. What’s more, the slow pace actually prepares you better for the distance. When you run a marathon, most of your body’s fuel comes from your aerobic (using oxygen) system – your hardworking muscles need oxygen-rich
blood to power each contraction. Your body adapts to easy miles by strengthening your heart, sprouting more capillaries to infuse oxygen into muscles and building more mitochondria, the factories in cells that produce energy.

…But work on your speed

Just because you run a marathon at a slower pace than your fastest mile doesn’t mean you should not include speed work in your training. In fact, it is hugely important: speed workouts improve your running form and help increase your VO2 max (the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise).

Susan Paul, an exercise physiologist and coach, recommends these speed workouts for marathon runners:

• Run two sets of 6×400m at5K pace; jog 200m for recovery. Take 4 minutes’ recovery between sets.
• Run 6-8 × 800m at10K pace; jog 200m for recovery.
• Mile repeats: run4×1mile at 30-45 secs faster than your goal race pace. Take 3 minutes’ recovery between mile repeats.

Do a tune up

About six weeks to a month before the marathon is a good time to test your fitness and see how far you have come over the previous weeks. Furthermore, a good race can provide a powerful mental lift and it will give you a little rest period in the few days before and after as you taper and recover from it. If you’re doing a half marathon as your tune-up race, aim to run it slightly faster than your marathon goal pace. And enjoy it.

Get strength specific

With strength training, observe the ‘principle of specificity’, says exercise physiologist Polly de Mille. ‘Running is a single-leg activity, jumping from one leg to the other,’ she says. So you need exercises that target one leg at a time. Single-leg deadlifts, lunges and single-leg squats improve leg stability by strengthening your core, legs and hips. This can improve running economy and speed, and reduce the risk of lower-body injury.

Rehearse

Use at least one long run as a dress rehearsal – do it in your marathon kit. ‘Practise with the energy gels you intend to refuel with during the race,’ says Suzanne Girard Eberle, author of Endurance Sports Nutrition (HumanKinetics). Do long runs on the same terrain as your marathon and start at the same time of day to get in sync with race day.

Don’t get greedy

As you move into the last few weeks of your schedule and start to feel stronger and fitter, don’t be tempted to overdo it; doing more miles than you need to in the last few weeks will hurt – not help – your race. ‘Even if you’re feeling great, don’t up the ante and increase your training,’ cautions says Bill Rodgers, four-time winner of both the Boston Marathon and the New York CityMarathon. ‘Draw strength from the hard work you’ve put in.’

List the reasons you’re ready

‘Only by having a positive mentality can we get the best out of ourselves,’ says Deena Kastor, Olympic marathoner and author of Let Your Mind Run (Crown). In the few weeks before the race, she advises counteracting doubts – eg ‘Was my longest run long enough?’– with three training affirmations. Type out on your phone all you’ve done right – go through your training log, noting the progress you’ve made with your nutrition, pat yourself on the back for getting enough sleep or count just how many miles you have logged.

Taper properly

Runners tend to struggle with the taper – the reduction of exercise workload before a race – because we fear cutting back will hurt our performance in the race. But it is key to performing your best on the big day. A review of 50 studies on tapering, published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, showed that levels of muscle glycogen, enzymes, antioxidants and hormones – all depleted by high mileage – return to optimal ranges during a taper. And the average performance improvement by the subjects who tapered in these studies was three per cent – that works out to five to 10 minutes in a marathon. Different training plans have varying approaches to the taper, but here are some general guidelines on cutting back:

Three weeks out:

• This begins the day after your last long run of 18-22 miles, which will be around three weeks before race day. The week before will probably have been your highest-mileage week.
• Decrease total mileage from that by 20-25 per cent by shaving a mile or two off your longer midweek runs.
• Your weekend long run on the first week of your taper (two weeks before the marathon) should be a 12-14-miler at the same pace as the previous week’s 20-miler.

Two weeks out:

• Your mileage should be about a half to two-thirds of your highest-mileage week. Your long run – one week before the race day – should be eight to 10 miles. Any longer and your muscles may not recover before the race. Keep the pace generally easy, but it’s fine to throw in a few 100m strides at the end of one or two workouts.
• If you’re targeting a time goal, do this key workout asa midweek run: warm up, then run one mile at 30 secs faster than race pace, then one mile at 30 secs slower than race pace. Repeat two to four times.

One week out:

• Aim to sleep eight hours a night and stay off your feet as much as you can – this will allow your body to top off its glycogen stores and maintain hydration levels.
• Do no runs longer than four miles. These runs are for your head: training has little physiological effect this week. Keep the pace easy, except a Tuesday two-miler at marathon pace, sandwiched between one-mile jogs. Three days before the race, run two to three miles easy. Rest the next day and on marathon eve, but you can run a couple of easy miles to calm the nerves if you want to.

Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox.