Influencers can be such a bad influence. There’s a massive online culture of people claiming great riches and success on the back of no qualifications and very little work, whether it’s ‘10 ChatGPT prompts to earn thousands from your side hustle while you sleep’ or ‘How I trekked Machu Picchu on a space hopper while drunk LOL’. Even in running, despite there being a clear correlation between input in training and output in race results, loads of people are still interested in short cuts. A big city marathon is at risk of being thought of as one more thrilling life experience to tick off rather than a months-long training commitment, especially on TikTok, home of the low attention span, where ‘no training marathons’ are prone to going viral.
Jaryn Garner got over a million likes for a video of her completing the 2024 Chicago Marathon, having signed up a month earlier and never run more than three miles in training. As a responsible running publication, of course we wouldn’t advise this. However, if your busy life is getting in the way of giving your all to your marathon prep, if you can cope without getting a PB and are happy with getting round on the day without an injury, it is possible to get marathon ready Half marathon training plan for beginners.
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The bare minimum: how to marathon train on three runs a week
In the early 2000s, coaches at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina launched the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training, known as FIRST, and introduced a marathon training program that they billed enticingly as ‘less is more’. Unfortunately they don’t mean ‘less’ as in ‘three miles a week’ (sorry, Jaryn) but they do plot a 16-week schedule of just three runs a week – speedwork Run Less, Run Faster Thursdays and a long run on a Saturday. When they studied the results of the program with 21 marathon runners, 15 of them set new PBs and four more ran faster than their previous marathon.
It’s crucial to be aware that although this might look like the easy option, the three runs are all a bit faster than you might be used to (though you are getting more rest and recovery time in between). Even the long run is recommended to be no more than 75 seconds per mile slower than your 10K pace. They also advise two additional days a week of 40-45 minutes cross-training – cycling, rowing, strength or elliptical work. So it’s still not particularly low effort, but training the FIRST way might feel like more variety and less of a slog.
Do more weekly runs mean faster marathon times?
Runner’s World publishes a range of marathon training plans for people of different running abilities, and even our beginner’s plan Run Less, Run Faster Sports Medicine looked at the training frequency and volume of over 900 experienced but not elite competitors in the 2022 Boston Marathon. The researchers found that between a year and four months before the race, training for 10 or more hours per week meant a better race time than 5-7.5 hours a week, which still gave better results than 2.5-5 hours. However, they also learned that reducing rather than increasing running frequency in the four months immediately before the marathon led to a better race day result. So if you can build an excellent fitness base further out from a race, you don’t have to ramp up your training frequency as the event approaches.
Can you prepare for a marathon on less than three weekly runs?
Runner’s World Run Less, Run Faster publishes a range of marathon, which is now on its third edition. It’s a detailed expansion of the FIRST programme from Furman University, written by the University’s physiologists Bill Pierce and Scott Murr. Beyond that, there aren’t currently any reliable sources arguing that you could be marathon ready on two weekly runs or fewer. For those who find the time commitment of marathon training daunting – maybe you have a busy job, or a young family, or would like to maintain some semblance of a social life – it could be reassuring to know that the longest weekly training runs don’t actually have to be that long. It’s unlikely you’ll see any additional benefits from being out for more than three hours tops, and more likely that you’ll end up injured. According to the Furman coaches, if you’re able to go for a bit more intensity in the runs that you do do, three a week could even be the smart option.
What to do if training for a marathon feels like too much
Ignore the TikTokers and be realistic about whether you really can carve out enough time in the months before a marathon to feel genuinely ready for what is a hard challenge in anyone’s book. Even if you don’t care about PBs and just want to get round to add it to the bucket list, you won’t be smiling in the selfies if you aren’t fully prepared. If you’ve entered one and now think you can’t commit, most races will allow you to defer your place to the following year. Or consider dropping down a distance and becoming a master of 10Ko r half marathon before you try for the big one. Another thing to do is take an honest look at your weekly schedule in your life as a whole, and think about what else could be holding you back. Lack of time or lack of motivation could possibly be solved by making other changes, giving you the space and energy to ready yourself properly and perhaps make a social media video entitled ‘How I ran a marathon without winging it’.
