GVH Marathon Training Talk 9 January 2025
Introduction
Runners training for a marathon often ask me questions like – how many runs should I do a week? How many miles a week should I run? Should I do both reps on a Tuesday and tempo on a Thursday? What’s the best fuel for taking on race day?
My answer to all these questions is – IT DEPENDS!
I am introducing this talk with that little aphorism because I don’t want anyone to expect all the answers to their own training conundrums to come tonight. What I will set out to do is cover some core principles to help you on your way with the reminder that your coaches, leaders & your fellow club members, offer a vast resource of knowledge which can support you with your individual questions.
My first core principle is – HAVE A PLAN
- Having a training plan is crucial for ensuring you train effectively and safely. It also keeps you accountable and gives you focus and motivation.
- I’m sure most of you have a training plan already, either taken from the innumerable excellent resources on the internet or in books, or that you have created yourself or in consultation with others.
- Whatever plan or approach you choose, the key is to follow it with consistency….and this is where the commitment to a block of training for a marathon is so important. If you have a plan that you can’t fit into your everyday life with work, family and other commitments it will not work effectively.
- If you have created your own training plan, check that you have made it steadily progressive in terms of overall mileage and training load – a rough guide is to not increase these by more than 10% per week. If you are in any doubt, please share your plan with one of the coaching team.
- Most plans will include a mix of easy aerobic miles, including a weekly long run, with sessions at higher intensity, such as our rep sessions. In this mix, the easy intensity should always be the majority shareholder! You will often hear reference to 80/20 training (in other words 80% low, 20% high) and this can be a useful guideline. A good plan will also include some strength and conditioning and can, if it works, include cross training. Again, there is no one size fits all answer to how you structure your plan, the answer is – IT DEPENDS!
A quick caveat – my next core principles link to my approach to marathon training and that is – THE LONG RUN IS SACROSANCT
- By this, I mean that, however your training is constructed, it should allow you to have a quality longer run once a week.
- Why? The long run provides the key adaptations to run the marathon distance. Aerobic fitness – having the lungs to get you to the finish of 26.2 miles
Musculoskeletal – getting used to time on feet of several hours
Mental – knowing what it is like to run for a long duration and distance - For first time marathoners these adaptations come as new skills, for the more experienced marathoner looking to set a PB or achieve a certain time goal it is about honing those adaptations as per your target.
- Most long runs should be at a low intensity. Why? Because it is that lower intensity that the body makes the adaptations above more efficiently. Also, it means you will be able to sustain the training block over the 12-16 weeks it is likely to be.
- For the more experienced runner or those looking to hit certain times you may well want to add in higher intensity segments to your long run. How and how much? IT DEPENDS!! I have a suggested plan for the new to intermediate runner which I will share on Facebook, but this won’t be appropriate for everyone, so again, ask one of us if you want more tailored input.
My next principle is – HAVE A TARGET
- Having a target gives you focus in our training and can really help with the motivation you need to keep consistent, as mentioned above.
- YOUR TARGET DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A SPECIFIC TIME!!! Oftentimes it will be, especially if you are an experienced runner looking for improvements, but a target can be more general and even just be ‘Get to the finish and enjoy the experience’.
- Whatever it is, your target will be the touchpoint for all your training. You can use it to frame all aspects of your build-up giving answers to ‘what is the purpose of this run’, ‘why am I eating this food’.
- But remember – your target can change! Things happen, both good and bad, that will impact you and your training. Don’t ignore these and adjust accordingly.
To follow on from that last point, my next principle is – LISTEN TO YOUR BODY
- While a plan, consistency and targets are super important we musn’t be slaves to them. Injuries happen, fatigue happens, stress in life is inevitable. Pay attention to signs, talk with coaches, physios and loved ones (who may well be the first to notice excessive fatigue which is a warning sign of overtraining) and respond accordingly. More often than not a few days away from the plan when needed will save the whole training block and keep you on track.
And this leads to my next core principle – RECOVERY IS YOUR BEST WEAPON
- Adaptation to training, and thus improvement, does not happen when actually training, it happens during recovery. So to neglect recovery is to render training pointless. I repeat, to neglect recovery is to render training pointless!
- There are lots of recovery products on the market, from shakes to pneumatic compression boots but there is one recovery tool available to us all and completely free….SLEEP…and it is the best. Make prioritising sleep a key focus of your training plan.
- Remember too, that recovery does not mean doing nothing. A short easy run, cross training or even a walk all count as active recovery – hence the importance of the idea of 80/20.
Part of recovery is good nutrition, so my next principle if FUEL FOR SUCCESS
- Eating well as runners is not always easy. Tonight is an example – we’ve run at 7pm and now have a talk with sweet treats as dinner. Not what a nutritionist would necessarily recommend. That’s the reality of life, but paying attention to our fuel needs is really important to getting through a marathon block healthily and successfully. We have a Nutrition Guide that we have produced for our Learn to Run courses over the years and I’ll post that on Facebook later as it serves as an excellent guide to general good nutrition. Again, we have loads of experience here at the club, so feed your minds as well as your tummies!
- Fuel is also important for your race. During a marathon you will want to take in additional carbohydrate to top up your glycogen levels. There are many ways to do this including gels, chews, sports drinks, jelly babies and many varieties of the above. Which ones work best….IT DEPENDS!! Everyone has their favourites and ones which are kind on their stomach. Now, current thinking is that you should aim for at least 60g of carbohydrate an hour – to put that in perspective that is 2 gels an hour, which for many of us can’t be tolerated. My rule of thumb is to discover how much you can take comfortably and in what form and make that your plan for the race. The only way to do this is to practice during training and experiment. In this way, you’ll also learn how you are going to carry that fuel with you, be that a gel belt, waist pack or whatever. You can also find out if your marathon provides any fuel on route and at what intervals and get hold of some of that to try if you want to minimise the amount you need to carry.
- We will have another training talk in March with further tips for race day, but this is one thing to definitely start thinking about now.
And so to my final principle and that is that…THE MIND MATTERS
- Rightly, so much of marathon training focuses on the physical, but a marathon and its training is a mental challenge too.
- Marathon training is tough – it takes up a lot of time, makes you tired and can cause physical discomfort! Having some mind-set strategies to cope with this makes a huge difference. I refer back to my principle of having a target – knowing the why and keeping that present can support these challenges. There are loads of resources on the internet about mind-set and how to use your mind to aid and support the physical. But I know that the best resource for tips and tricks will be at this club. Chat to others and explore what works for you – you won’t regret it.
So that’s more than enough from me. Now is a time for questions (to which I promise the answer won’t always be…IT DEPENDS) and for sharing your favourite training tips and advice.