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This is
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What's The Best Marathon Training Program?
Finding Time To Do Your Marathon Training
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better marathon Setting Your Marathon Time Goal Thoughts on Deciding to Run a Marathon
How to overcome the hill challenges
Tips on
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An imaginary
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'26.2' - The Marathon Training Website:Vary Your Training and Improve Your Marathon
Why is this? Well, the marathon race itself puts a lot of stress on your muscles. Now throw in some hills, windy weather and other adverse conditions and it gets worse. If you vary the intensity of your training runs you end up stronger overall, and will be much more capable of completing the marathon without running into trouble or hitting the wall. Let's say for example you plan to average 9 minutes per mile during your marathon, for a finish time around 3hrs 56 mins. Your training should include these kinds of workouts:
Tempo Run A Tempo run consists of a warm-up of about one mile at an easy pace, then run the next few miles at a faster than marathon pace. Finally slow down and run the last mile at an easy pace. In our example from above you would warm up at a 9:30 pace, run say 3 miles at an 8:15 to 8:30 pace and then finish up at the final mile at a 9:30 pace. Hard Run This is normally a 5 - 6 mile workout, but can be more depending on your training level. Try and do your hard run on relatively flat terrain. The workout should consist of:
Example, for a 6 mile hard run,
Hill Work For this type of run you can either do hill repeats or just run a hilly course that will give you a good workout. Either way run the last mile at an easy pace to cool down. For the hill repeats find an appropriate hill, anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 mile is good. - run the hill using moderate effort - jog back at a slow pace - repeat several times until you have reached your target distance A five to 6 mile workout will help build stamina and strengthen your quadriceps. Speed Work I don't recommend speedwork for beginner marathoners, but if you have completed several marathons, have no injuries, and want to improve your finish time then this can be a good weekly or bi-weekly workout for you. Speed (Interval) training should be done on a track or a flat section of trail. It consists of a warm-up of about 2 miles, fast intervals interspaced with recovery jogs, and a cool down of about 1.5 miles at the end. Here is a typical interval workout:
This will give you a total workout of just under 5 miles. Some marathoners don't do the shorter distances and instead do mile repeats, which consists of one mile at a fast pace followed by one mile recovery repeated until you have achieved your total workout mileage. If you include the above workouts in moderation into your training you should feel the difference on race day. Warning! Don’t try and do all of the above in the same week as a 20 mile long run! You will certainly increase the risk of an injury.
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