Preparing for your First Marathon
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 12:42PM A slight change in direction in today's topic, but one that is of great interest to the many people who work towards their first marathon each year.
Are there any prerequisites to running a marathon?
Running a marathon requires a high level of physical and mental endurance and thus performance is largely influenced by training background, or the number of years you have been running. I am always critical of runners who see the marathon as the pinnacle and therefore start running with the aim of running their first marathon within a year. This is definitely possible, but it also puts you at greater risk of injury, greater risk of not finishing, definitely a slow time and will probably mean you are less likely to stick with running long term.
Ultimately, there are no prerequisites if your goal is to 'simply' (and it isn't that simple) finish a marathon. However, this all depends on your goals and if you have a set time which you would like to achieve. As a general rule, I would suggest considering a marathon after that following:
- Been running for 2 years or more
- Be comfortable completing 4+ runs each week
- Have completed a half marathon (and ideally more than one)
By having this background you will be better prepared to undertake the demand of marathon training, as well as increase your chance of achieving your marathon goal.
How to train for a marathon
As a general rule, I recommend a 12-14 week marathon specific training period. This doesn't mean you don't need to start training prior to this; it simply means that this is the period in which you focus on marathon work. The lead up to this phase is effectively training you to handle this 12-14 week training period.
How do you know if you are ready for this marathon period? You need to comfortably be completing 2 hour long runs prior to this period. I don't generally recommend going much longer than this in the pre-marathon period as there is only so many long runs the body can tolerate (especially for your first marathon).
Lets take Gold Coast Marathon in July as the example. It is in early July which means you need to start your marathon specific training at the end of March, start of April. Prior to this you will need to be training consistently and comfortably completing 2 hour long runs regularly.
Structuring your marathon training
When putting together your marathon scheduled you need to focus on your priority training session. I prioritise marathon training sessions for the first time marathoner like this:
- Long run
- Tempo session
- Shorter intervals
The majority of any other sessions involve only easy running.
What this means is that you must ensure you get in your priority session each week. It is the focus of your training and must be completed. The long run is generally completed on the weekend, but if you are unable to get it in for some reason, then it must be completed during the week. The consistency of the long run is crucial and they cannot be missed.
The Long Run
As a general rule you want to build up and include 1-2 runs in your preparation of 34-36km in length. On all other weeks, long runs should range between 2 hours (easy weeks only) and 2:50. Try and complete your long runs over undulating terrain as this will assist in strength development. It is also beneficial to complete a large portion of your run on softer services like dirt and grass to reduce the risk of injury.
During the taper period (the last couple of weeks prior to the race) I would recommend limiting the length of your long run to 2:20 (2 weeks out) and 90min (1 week out).
The key to your long run is getting through them, so keep the intensity low, but as the race gets closer, ensure you run strongly throughout and finish off at closer to tempo intensity if possible. You will probably read that running 10-20% slower than marathon goal pace is ideal, and this is a good guide but if you are expecting to run over 4 hours for the marathon, then your training speed is best to be at marathon pace or slightly slower.
We will leave it there for today's post, but we will come back to this topic of marathon training as there is a lot to cover and a lot of ways of achieving your first marathon.
Reader Comments (1)
Ben, this is an excellent post which I found informative and interesting. Really looking forward to the rest. Hoping to put your advice to good effect one day (once the chilbearing is finished with!!).
cheers