Deciding to do your first marathon is a journey many runners go on each year. Once you’ve decided the question you’ll ask yourself becomes “how do I train for my first marathon?” Marathon training isn’t all that different from training for any other race but obviously there’s an emphasis on distance which can bring challenges. By sticking with these principals, your first block of marathon training will be a success! You will face challenges but the key is to stay flexible and get the basics right.
How long do I need to train for my marathon?
The first tip is to work backward from your goal, you could probably suffer your way through 42km tomorrow but that’s not really the aim. If you are thinking of entering a marathon, the likelihood is that you’re already fit enough to simply walk or shuffle your way through a marathon. If you’re already a regular runner, the TLDR is 12 weeks but you might need longer if you’re a beginner.
The trick to this is to work backward, so if your marathon is 4 months away, could you see yourself being able to run 32km in 3 months time? If the answer is yes, then that’s long enough! If not, think carefully before hitting enter and paying that race entry fee.
With The Running Algorithm, you can train for any length of time. While we wouldn’t recommend it, it’s possible to train for a marathon with us for 2 weeks. The opposite is also true, if you want to start training for a marathon today that’s a year away, with us you can!
Nail your nutrition
Nutrition for marathon training isn’t just slamming gels on long runs (but that does help) - getting it right plays a key role in your recovery, energy in sessions and chance of injury. Carbs, calcium and protein are the key. Obviously nutrition is more complicated than it’s possible to explain in a listicle but if you eat enough carbs before and after training your sessions will go well. Calcium (along with vitamin D and many minerals) is key in bone formation and it’s common for rookie marathoners to struggle with bone stress injuries. Finally, protein - important for muscle recovery and bone mineral formation too.
Second to your minerals and macros is to fuel during your training sessions. Elite marathoners consume over 100g of carbohydrate per hour during their race (this is usually between 3 and 4 gels per hour of their chosen brand). This kind of carbohydrate consumption is not the preserve of the elite either, with multiple studies showing that it can help athletes of all levels. You can also learn to do it in training, gradually increasing your hourly gel consumption rate in your long runs!
The short takeaway is carbs before and after training, gels during long or hard sessions and a protein shake after - nail these and you can’t go too wrong.
Don’t neglect your brain
One under-appreciated challenge in the marathon is standing on the startline in the knowledge that you’ve got at least 2 hours (and most often more than 3) of running in front of you. 42.2km or 26.2 miles is a really long way and having that length of road in front of you can be extremely intimidating. Facing up to that challenge is tough but as an athlete there’s a number of steps you can take.
For faster runners, running the distance (or very close to it) in training is an option - however you shouldn’t run for much more than 3.5 hours in training because the recovery demands of this are so great, so it’s not an option for everyone. Breaking the race up into 10k increments can also help.
Through training and conscious work on your psychology, you’ll be able to get yourself on the startline confident that you’re prepared to run the distance.
Don’t forget your speed
While marathon training it can be easy to forget the fast stuff. Strides, 400m repetitions and hard hill reps may not feel like they’ll help much during a marathon but it all adds up. Your marathon pace ceiling is set by your maximum aerobic speed (we’ve all heard about VO2 max). Making this as high as possible early in your marathon training allows you to have lots of space to “train into” - where the aim is to maximise the amount of your VO2 max speed you can use.
The best marathon runners on earth are able to run very close to their 5k pace for a marathon - but their 5k pace is really fast! Keeping this fast work “topped up” during marathon training is vital, but avoiding overdoing it is also key as you need a lot of energy for those marathon pace efforts and long runs.
Training with The Running Algorithm will allow you to carefully balance the speed work and aerobic work during your marathon training - our AI will fine tune your engine to have you on the start line as fit (and healthy) as possible for your marathon.
Keep your plan flexible
There’s no getting away from it, marathon training takes up a huge amount of time and is hard work. You might feel some pain, get a bit sick or just find yourself stuck at work for an extra few hours when you have a session planned.
The trick is to be as flexible as possible. You need a training plan that will allow you to…
Remove a planned run and switch it to another day
Replace a planned run with a bike ride or swim (and adapt your other runs that week)
Have a week off but give you appropriate training upon return (rather than just dumping you back onto another week of the plan)
Change the number of times you run each week
The Running Algorithm allows you to do all of this. The software was built with maximum flexibility in mind.
Marathon training can be tough, but if you work backward from your goal, eat properly, work on your psychology and speed as well as staying flexible - you’ll have everything you need. If you really want to maximise your training block then sign up to The Running Algorithm here.
