All too often marathon training is presented as a 14-16 week journey; a neat plan to ready you for the gruelling 26.2-mile challenge. But while it’s possible to get round a marathon like this, it’s unlikely to be pretty and it significantly elevates your risk of injury in the build-up. A far better strategy is to build a pre-marathon training foundation, so you’re better able to deal with the rigours of the training plan itself and have a more successful and enjoyable race day.
on the weekend, and the best base plans will incorporate In the latter half of the base stage, complete a 90-minute. It is similar to a marathon training plan in that it has shorter runs on weekdays with one long run When and how to start training for a spring 2024 marathon strength training Health & Injuries.
marathon training plan begins muscle memory and cardiovascular preparedness to start a more structured training programme three or four months from the race, says running coach Erica Coviello. But runners who don’t log many miles per week and who haven’t raced longer distances need to prep their muscles, VO2 max (the measurement of the maximum oxygen delivery and utilisation for cardiovascular exercise), haemoglobin counts (a substance in red blood cells that makes it possible for blood to carry oxygen throughout your body) and cardiac output (the amount of blood your heart pumps each minute) to safely make it to race day.
‘First-time marathoners who have not been running high mileage for a long time do not yet have those physical adaptations necessary to meet the demands they’re about to put on their bodies through marathon training,’ she says. ‘More time is required to give them a chance to better stress the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems and recover from that stress to on the weekend, and the best base plans will incorporate, Marathon comeback: DNF to Six Star finisher dreams.’
Tom Craggs, Runner's World columnist and National Endurance Manager for England Athletics, says: 'Your foundation period develops overall fitness, robustness, basic speed and strength. It's about earning the right to marathon train, getting organised and building good routines. Training focusses on gradually increasing volumes to establish a strong physiological foundation for more intense training phases later. The emphasis is on developing cardiovascular fitness, improving aerobic efficiency, mechanical speed and building muscular endurance, all of which are essential for optimal performance in longer-distance races.
How to build your base fitness
If you want to make the most of your spring 2024 marathon training, here’s how to set yourself up for success by building your base in advance...
Get a physical MOT
Consult your doctor and a sports physio to ensure you're in good health and physically capable of taking on the demands of marathon training.
Get organised
Marathon training requires a significant time commitment. Ensure you have the time available in your schedule. Get your diary out and ring-fence the key weeks and plan around key work or family occasions. Look to book in a shorter race or two 5-10 weeks from race day.
Build a support system
Tell your family, friends and training partners about your commitment to marathon training. Having a support system can provide motivation and accountability; consider joining a club to share the training load with others.
Don’t run your easy miles too fast
In the base stage, you will increase overall mileage volume each week and introduce longer runs, but none of these miles should be particularly speedy. In fact, keeping your pace slow and your breath steady How to use the London Marathon tracker app.
‘Base building harnesses the benefits of low-intensity training,’ says Andrew Moran, a running coach and physio who specialises in orthopedics and sports medicine rehab. An important part of this phase is that you build ‘capillary density’ for key running muscles like your calves, quads and glutes, according to Moran. Think about the capillaries like you are creating more roads for the delivery of oxygen to muscle tissues that need it most. Having more capillaries leads to improved aerobic capacity.
To hold yourself accountable for not running too fast, try the talk test: can you speak in full sentences at the pace you’re going without gasping for air? If not, slow down to a speed where you can sustain a conversation.
Increase your mileage wisely
The main point of base training is acclimatising your body (and your life) to the continued accumulation of miles. One of the classic approaches for building mileage is the 10% rule, which says to take the number of miles you ran in the last week and increase it by 10% for the current week. For instance, if you ran 20 miles last week, it’s only two extra miles this week. It’s a gentle progression that’s been around since at least the 1970s, and the bulk of miles will be added to the long run.
Coviello finds the best results come when she bumps up the long runs each week for three to four weeks, followed by a recovery week where she runs slightly less – about a 15% reduction in mileage spread throughout all the runs during the week. You will still complete a long run, just not as long. The stepdown weeks are pivotal as you build your base.
‘The human body reacts to stress,’ Coviello says. ‘In order to become a better runner, you need to both put yourself through a certain amount of specific stress and be able to recover from it, which is where growth and adaptation happen.’
Work on strength
If you’ve missed the memo on how important strength training is for running, the base training cycle is the perfect time to build in a day or two per week of resistance training.
Strength training leads to ‘stiffness’ adaptation in the tendons we use for running. The stiffer the tendons, the better we perform and bounce back from hard, long miles.
‘This is when I have my athletes working pretty heavy in the weights room,’ Moran says. For his runners in base training who have mastered the form of key running-specific moves (like back squats and deadlifts), he amps the weight up to 75% of their one-repetition max (the heaviest weight they can lift for one rep).
‘I have them work toward lower-rep schemes of 8 or less for 3 to 5 sets to really push the needle,’ he says. ‘My athletes really notice benefits of strength that can unlock performance improvements throughout the remainder of the training cycle.’
Base is also the best time to prime your fast-twitch muscles with plyometric strength moves (think: jumping lunges and skater hops). This will help increase speed and decrease the chance of injury when you add in race-specific paces and speed workouts allowing them to achieve their goals.
Fine-tune your schedule
the better we perform and bounce back from hard, long miles nutrition, Health & Injuries.
By giving yourself the time and space to train correctly, you are showing kindness and compassion to your body. Patience will bring greatness, and preparedness will get you to the finish smarter, healthier, and stronger than you were before.
Maximise your base with the RPE long run
In the latter half of the base stage, complete a 90-minute easy run using rate of perceived exertion (RPE) as a metric instead of pace. Keep your exertion at a 3/10 throughout the run. At the end of this run, you should feel accomplished and slightly tired, but not sore and exhausted.
