How To Train To Run A Marathon

Here's some basic advice on how to train to run a marathon. The key thing about marathon is it's a long way. It's 26.

2 miles, 42 kilometers, so the key focus of your training has to be building up your long run. Depending on what your starting point is, you're probably looking to build up to a maximum distance, maybe about five weeks before the target marathon, looking to, if you can build up to 23, 24 miles as your single longest run. You're also looking to focus on getting keen, kind of physical and mental awareness of what marathon pace feels like and means to you.

To do this, you should be doing some fairly regular training in the three months or so before the marathon, where you do sustained running at about marathon pace. Can you do this as a single run, so maybe 9, 10, 12 miles at marathon pace, or within the increasing longer runs you do? You could be maybe looking to run the last few miles at something like marathon pace or marathon effort. You should probably also get some awareness about pace judgement and how precisely the physiology around glycogen burning and fat burning effects your performance.

Hitting the wall is famous and a very frequent occurrence in marathon running. And I think many runners are too casually in over-zealous early pace, which is what destroys the marathon. I think you should think about regular training, about your threshold pace, which is around about your 10K or 10 mile race pace, because there'll be a fair link between that and your marathon pace.

And I would probably advise against doing too many interval training sessions in the three months or so before a marathon. There's a place for them, but on the road. They'll get you tired, but they won't particularly have a key impact on your marathon performance.

You should be looking at a fairly high mileage, depending on what you're used to. I would emphasize the focus should be on long runs with adequate recovery from them, because they will take quite a bit out of you, and marathon pace, and threshold training, building those into your seven-day or 14-day training cycle, so you get that variety of pace and recovery across the training cycle. So, that's some basic advice on how to train to run a marathon.

So you're thinking about running a marathon but not sure where to start? In this short VideoJug feature, Endurance Running Coach David Chalfen provides basic advice on how to train for a marathon. Learn all about pace, distance, and types of training that will help prepare for this gruelling challenge.