Rundurance

Before you start your first marathon training program, you need to specify your goals of the race.  A marathon is a hell of a challenge in itself – so the goals range quite a bit.  For some people, the goal is to reach the starting line healthy.  For millions of runners every year, the goal is just to reach the finish line (healthy or not!).  And for a few others, it’s a specific time goal.

For your first marathon, the goal to finish is a normal and reasonable goal.  And if you follow our plan below, you’ll greatly increase your chance of success.

You should have 3 race goals.

The first goal is your bare minimum goal – the one that you must achieve to have any level of satisfaction with your first marathon.  This is the most critical marathon goal, especially for first timers. It’s the one that will scare you into getting up early week after week for your long Sunday runs. This is the goal that will force you back out on Monday when you’re sore, to get in your recovery runs – because the fear of not accomplishing this goal is too much to deal with.

Your second goal is your realistic goal.  This goal is something you know you can accomplish if you train hard.

The last goal is the fun one.  This is your stretch goal – it’s a marathon goal you’re not sure if you can accomplish or not, but it’s that golden ring worth reaching for.  This accomplishment is the one that will have you smiling for weeks (as your feet and blisters recover!).  It’s also the one that will keep getting you back on the saddle for another try until you accomplish it.

As you set your goal, I want you to think about this one lesson I’ve learned in my many years of experience running marathons and ultra-marathons:

You are capable of more than you think. If you push your body, it will respond.

Now it’s time to start running (or walking)

A first-time marathon training program should be 20 weeks.  Some programs will be squeezed into 16 weeks, while others stretch to 24 or more.  I believe 24 is too many, not for your body but for your sanity. Getting up every Saturday or Sunday morning for 6 months is mentally exhausting, and it’s unnecessary.  There will be plenty of challenges with this marathon training plan, there’s no need to add additional challenges.

If you already have solid base miles of 20-30 miles per week, then you can skip straight to week 8 of this training plan. This makes the training program a 4 month marathon plan.  If you do not have these base miles, then start from week 1.  Pushing your body too hard too fast will result in injury leaving you sitting at home on race morning.  Follow this plan consistently, and we’ll get you to the finish line.

Beginner Marathon Training Program

Details about the Marathon Training Plan

• All runs should start with a short 3-5 minute warm-up and 3-5 minute cool down.  This is to get the blood flowing, nothing more.  This can be a swift walk or a slow jog.
• Easy means easy.  Not as easy as the warm-up, but not heavy exertion.  A simple test is the “talk test.”  You should be able to carry on a conversation.  If you are alone, you don’t need to talk to yourself, just make sure you could talk if you wanted to.
  • Medium means it would be a little difficult to talk.  You can talk, but there’s some heavy breathing between sentences.
  • Hard means you can’t talk.  You can grunt some words, but you shouldn’t be able to have a conversation.  No matter your age or fitness level, you can run hard (relatively).  This is important if you really want to reach your stretch goal.  (If you don’t want to reach your stretch goal, you shouldn’t have set it.)
  • A tempo run should start easy for 5 minutes, run hard for 10+ minutes, then back to easy for 5 minutes.  So a 20 minute tempo run is 5-10-5, a 40 minute tempo run is 5-30-5.  Got it?
  • Intervals runs should be repeating an easy-hard pattern.  For this marathon program, all interval runs should be 2 minutes easy, 3 minutes hard.  You should be running a 5K pace during the hard running section, and focus on recovery during the easy.  Do not push the easy, because it only takes away from the hard. This workout is all about learning to recover quickly.  Believe it or not, it’s the easy running sections that are the most valuable to this workout.
  • X-training is something physical you like to do for fun.  No, Wii Fit does not count.  Biking, hiking, walking, yoga, stretching, and weight lifting are all good examples, but there are many more.

You’ll also notice that this plan utilizes something most do not, back-to-back long runs on the weekend.  Your typical cookie-cutter marathon training program will not have these, but Rundurance believes in the power of back-to-back long runs for building endurance and learning to run when you’re tired.  The second day will be rough, you’ll wake up in the morning sore and tired and unsure whether you can really go for a run.

Let me answer this: Yes, you can!  The first 2-3 miles won’t be fun, but you’ll find yourself loosening up and feeling better, and by the 3^rd or 4^th mile you will be feeling great.  Still tired, but your legs will build strength and you will build confidence.

Preparing the night before your first Marathon race

You’re probably pretty nervous, but don’t be.  You’ve done all the hard work and now it’s time to reap the benefits.

Don’t worry about carbo-loading; a 10K does not require it. In fact, it won’t help at all because you will not be short on carbohydrate energy in 6.1 miles.  You don’t reach that threshold until 12-16 miles.  You have 1800 calories worth of available carbohydrate cells with immediate energy stored away.  Most people burn between 125-150 calories per mile. Eat a normal meal, drink lots of water, and get to bed early.

Have a beer or glass of wine if it helps ease your nerves, but just one!  Then go to bed, and think positive thoughts about your race.  You’ve trained hard, and what was your stretch goal 6 weeks ago is now within reach.  Good luck, and let us know how it goes.  We love to hear from people that successfully use our training programs.