Marathon Training

Please see my 16 week marathon training program for a helpful chart.

Essential Principles to Follow

Training for a fast marathon is going to suck your muscles dry and, once in a while, beat them to hell. And that's good! The idea is to break yourself down so that your inner systems build themselves back up, faster, stronger and more efficient.

Nutrition

When you train, you fatigue your physiology and tear down your muscles. By eating a healthy diet, rich with whole grains, cereals, fruits, vegetables and quality proteins (fish, turkey, chicken, lean red meat), and drinking ample amounts of water, you're helping your systems conduct proper repair work and fueling your muscles for the next session.

Rest

Long runs tend to make you extremely tired, as does the steady accumulation of weekly mileage. So this is a simple principle to follow: Get to bed early as often as you can, and try to get at least eight hours worth of sleep.

Massage

Getting a weekly massage, either from a recommended sports massage therapist (ideal if you can afford it) or a significant other (a true expression of love) makes a nice contribution to the revitalization of your legs and, not to mention, your mind.

Swimming

You'll see this written into the slot for your Monday workout in the program. Laps in the pool expose your overworked muscles to the healing powers of water, and swimming seems to offer a rejuvenating massage of its own. Swimming is also a nice counterbalance in terms of muscle use and is good for the core muscles that support your trunk when you're running. Biking-another zero-impact activity-is a second brilliant crosstraining method that develops muscles that enhance the shock-absorption needs running requires. And, like swimming, biking serves up a nice plate of "active recovery."

Weights

Weight and strength training is yet another avenue toward galvanizing the body against the jarring impact of running. Develop muscular balance and core strength, and whip some power into your butt, calves and legs.

Equipment

Along with proper recovery techniques, you need to spend some time, money and thought into your equipment. Chiefly, your running shoes and running shoe inserts.

Shoes and shoe inserts
Technical running shoe stores often offer a service that will determine the needs of your foot through simple analysis, and they can point you in the direction of shoes (be it a support shoe, a neutral shoe, motion-control or cushioning) that will minimize the injury risks of hard training. Also, ask about inserts that might be appropriate to your needs. A $25 stability insert might just save you days or weeks of lost training.

If you have a history of running injuries, it might be wise to consult with a podiatrist. Ask local runners (and the runners at your shoe store) for recommendations as who to see.

Apparel
Running hats, gloves, jackets, tights and good socks can make a magical difference in your enjoyment of the sport.

Executing the Program

This 16-week program is, as mentioned before, designed for the intermediate and advanced runner with some solid running already in their legs. (If you're coming off a break from running, simply add two months of good, smooth base running that elevates your long run to between 12 and 15 miles and gets your muscles ready for a hard 16 weeks of training.)

A few notes on the various workouts:

Long runs

The long run is the most important part of the program, as long runs specifically prepare your muscles to meet the energy demands that running longer than two or three hours brings. Run these at an easy to moderate pace, focused more on simply completing the distance than getting yourself into any sort of race.

Keeping your heart rate within the basic confines of 120-150 beats per minute is a good rule to follow. Try and find routes that aren't especially hilly but aren't especially flat either. Nice rolling hills are a good way to go.

Tempo runs

To break it up into pieces (like three times seven minutes with a one-minute recovery between each run). But work toward running it all at once. To do this, Tempo runs and races are the elements that will mix with the general endurance provided by the long and intermediate runs to spice up your speed for race day. The right tempo pace is going to be at about 170-180 beats on your heart-rate monitor, a level at which you want to spend 20-25 minutes. It should be at a pace where you can no longer carry on a conversation. The first time you attempt a tempo run, you may need you'll need to spend at least 20 minutes warming up with jogging and striders, getting your heart rate up to handle the coming workload. Follow it with cool-down jogging.

The 5K and 10K races set into the plan are also forms of quality speed work, designed to amp up your systems and efficiency to hold a fast pace on marathon race day.
The rest of the running.

Except for tempo runs, races and runs where you finish off with a hard 10 minutes, keep the bulk of your running at below 150 beats per minute. It is important to listen to your body. These runs are meant to help you recover from the harder training while still building your endurance. Try to take your recovery running to a soft trail or grassy field, allowing your muscles to take a break from any pavement running you're beating them up with.  

Please see my 16 week marathon training program for a helpful chart.