Speaker: Think about the marathon for a minute, well, maybe not for a minute. It’s a long way. It requires you to keep moving your legs at a fairly quick rate. It drains you radiator and empties your fuel tank. It’s mentally challenging. The key to survival then is to teach your body and your mind to handle these stresses. Prepare and you will survive. The most important thing you can teach your body is the basic act of running; step after step, day after day. Most of your training will be simply that; easy runs at aerobic pace increasing the amount you do week by week over the course of three or four months. that will build a foundation for your success.
Part of that process would be a long run, usually once a week at a distance that gets progressively longer. There are different opinions about how long the longest run should be. Most experts though encourage extending your weekly long run at about one additional mile per week until you are running the amount of time, not distance, but time that it will take you to complete the marathon distance.
Your training phase will be 10 or 20% slower than your plain marathon pace. So that means a long run in the 22-mile range should keep on your feet the desired amount of time. Your long run shouldn’t be fast. In fact, it should be comfortable enough that you can chat with people you are running with. If nothing else, you will learn some embracing personal things about your training partners, as they get too tired to scream out information they normally wouldn’t share.
One training system popularized by Jeff Galloway encourages runners to take walking break during long run and during the marathon itself. It’s not cheating, giving yourself a periodic walking break can help extend the distance you can run and improve your performance. If you decide to take walking break, start early in the run well before you start to get tired.
Speaker: We have just covered the most important aspects of marathon training. Develop good aerobic strength through lots of easy running, progressively increase your total weekly mileage and teach your body to long. Now let’s talk about a few other training techniques that can add some zip to your drive.
Speaker: If you say that the marathon is a test of endurance, then why on Earth are these marathon are doing speed work, running much faster than they will in the marathon. Well many runners enjoy very gratifying marathon without ever breaking out of the steady running pace in training. So that’s I learned in the 1976 Olympic marathon occasionally training at faster then marathon pace, makes marathon pace itself feel very comfortable.
Periodic speed work can help you develop a quicker leg turn over which can lead to a more comfortable marathon experience. Even if you have never visit a track, adding temple runs to your weekly training can help you improve your leg turn over. So you tolerate faster running.
Temple runs are unusually done at about 80 to 85% of your maximum heart rate. The term controlled fast is sometimes used to describe this pace, fast but not that hard that your muscles will slow down by lactic acid accumulation. Temple runs are usually an inserted 15 to 20 minutes up kick in pace during a standard run, but they can also be done as cruise intervals in shorter segments with a short rest between each.
Either way, they can help a lot and finally for the truly fair hill repeat. Up the hill at the crisp, steady pace, jog back down, repeat. Five to ten of these steps every week or so will really give you an ability to manage hills on the marathon course and even if the course has no hill, you will run stronger on the flat.
Speaker: If I spook you with intervals, repeats and temple run, forget them for now. I go back to the most important part of marathon survival. Develop good aerobic strength through lots of easy running and teach your body to occasionally go along.
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