When you’re preparing for a marathon it’s something that takes time, motivation, patience and a big commitment on your part. It is important to remember that your overall performance is not affected if you miss a session here or there, so don’t beat yourself up about it.
Increasing your training can put new or added demands on your body that it is not use to. It is important to make sure that you pay attention to your body’s the resting heart rate, if your body’s weight changes rapidly, change of fatigue, motivation, thirst and sleeping patterns. If you do notice a change or feel that you may be overtraining it is o.k. to take a day or two and rest.
All Training Runs Should Include a Warm Up and Cool Down
A warm up needs to be between 10 and 12 minutes and a cool down should be no shorter than 10 minutes. The cool down can be as simple as jogging at a low intensity. The end of the warm up could include drills like stretching that include high knees, bounding, short stride outs and even butt kicks.
Below you will find various sessions outlined and include warm up and cool down times. The warm up and cool down times are really important to make sure you get the most bang for your buck from your training session. By doing these you are ensuring you make a quick recovery for your next training session.
Types of Training Sessions
Recovery Runs
Recovery runs are active forms of recovery. This type of run should be a low intensity and on flat terrain. During these times do not worry about the pace of the run. It needs to be nice and easy, even if you feel fresh and like you are ready to go. To see more information about recovering after your marathon click here.
Medium Long Runs
A medium long run is the run that is midweek aerobic run that is longish. The pace you use for this run is similar to your long run in terms of pace. You should consider finding hilly courses for this.
Long Runs
For a marathon success it is important to remember that long runs are very similar. A marathon is usually an event that is a long duration and the intensity is low. While training you need to be doing it over hilly terrain and make sure to include soft and hard surfaces. Then the closer you get to the actual event you need to not use as much hill and run more on harder surface to prepare you for the condition of the actual event.
When you are training with long runs you should run at a moderate intensity. You will actually want to make your long runs about 30 – 40 seconds slower than the pace you will use during the actual event. You should also consider running with a training group during long runs. To get a better idea how to prepare for long runs click here.
Aerobic Runs
The idea of aerobic run is similar to that of the medium long run when it comes to intensity, but the duration of the run is shorter. This run is not the focus of the week and is used to generate only a smaller amount of training. They are also not as easy as the recovery run and not quite as demanding as the medium long runs.
The aerobic run usually includes strides interspersed at different places throughout the run making it a moderate intensity aerobic run.
Strides
The idea behind the stride is to enhance the neuromuscular performance of your run. The strides should be done at various times throughout the run at approximately 5km race pace and there should be aerobic running taking place between each one. It is important to do this on flat terrain, usually in an oval.
Downhill Strides
Downhill strides are like the strides except you do them on a slight downhill. It is very important to do them on a smooth surface to keep you safe. This type of stride needs to be done as close to maximum speed to help your running technique and to stress your muscle eccentrically. Eccentric muscle contractions are the muscle lengthening while it is contracting. This type of contraction is what you experience in downhill running, over-speed training or when you are at the end of a long competition.
Anaerobic Threshold Runs
The anaerobic threshold is boosted when you do the anaerobic threshold runs. Doing these runs allows an increased speed to be maintained and reducing the muscular fatigue for you at your marathon pace. You need to do these intervals on a flat course, something like a track or something oval and only after you done a really good warm up. A steady pace needs to be maintained while doing this in intervals of 10-15 km of the race pace. An easy job is what is done in intervals for the recovery periods.
Strength Endurance Runs
Marathon running is different due to its length and nature. One important factor to consider is being able to last the distance and not getting fatigued for as long as possible, which is strength. One of the best ways to prepare for this is to develop strength endurance and it is done by using hills to help you out.
The hill should be on a long hill with a moderate grade and an intensity of firm/hard. The idea is to maintain a relatively long stride while going up the hill, which will help improve your strength. When you finish going up the hill you just simply jog down the hill before doing the next part of the training.
When you have days that have a tempo run combined with the hill run you just add a flat tempo with a firm intensity, which would be about a 10 km race pace. The end of your tempo run should be when you get to the bottom of the hill, this is important so you can start running your first hill portion of the training.
Strength training is beneficial to preparing for a marathon.
Marathon Pace Runs
Including marathon pace runs in your training is important to get you ready for the real event. When you are including these make sure you include good warm ups and cool downs. The middle part of the run will be where you actually run the marathon pace. You need to treat this part of the run like the actual event, including having a couple easy days before you actually try it.
You should also do these runs on a surface that will be similar to what you will be running on the day of the event and making sure that you are wearing the shoes and clothing for the event day and make sure you have the fluids and food you will be including in your run.
The reason for these sessions is to see how you are doing getting ready for the event. Do not get discouraged if it doesn’t work out the way you thought it would. This is a training exercise and allows you the opportunity to see what needs to be improved on for the real event.
Tempo Runs
The idea behind the tempo run is to get your body ready for the speed or pace you will be running during the actual marathon. You will run in intervals that will be at the pace you will be running at the marathon and running on a hard surface. The recovery between the tempos will be an easy jog.
Stretching
You should try and include 10 – 15 minutes of stretching after each training session. Also a couple times a week you should add a 20 – 30 minutes of stretching as well. Stretching will help to minimize injury and fatigue by working with your muscles. For more information about stretching click here.
Time vs. Distance
This program is set up for running a certain distance instead of running a certain amount of time. This is because a marathon is a specific distance and you need to make sure you are getting ready for that distance.
The other reason it has been set up this way is because runners with different abilities can still work on achieving the certain distance with each session. The distance specified is a guide and does not need to be followed exactly each day , which is important to remember during this training.
Strength Training – Weights
Strength training is an important part of any training that will benefit you as a runner. This is something that shows technique improvement, reducing the muscles from getting fatigued and can help prevent injuries to the body and/or muscles.
You need to start out small, like two training sessions per week and are light weights only, if you are going to add it to your training program. You also need to make sure that the strength training does not detract you from your ability to feel fresh and do well with the other part of your training.
Nutrition and Other Aspects of Training
Nutrition plays an important part for all runners when training for a marathon. Since there is a high volume of training needed for a marathon, nutrition can really affect your performance and health.
Good Luck and Happy Training!
Rick
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