If you are registered for this year’s marathon event, you will be receiving regular emails from us designed to guide you through the journey step-by-step. Unfortunately, there are no short-cuts when it comes to marathon preparation. We strongly endorse allowing at least a 4-6 month period in which you can gradually build up your strength and endurance. The exact length of your training programme will depend on your initial level of fitness: For beginners and/or first-timers, six months is considered a reasonable timeframe.
Your training programme is multi-faceted. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on 3 main categories: (1) Fitness and Training; (2) Nutrition and Hydration; and (3) The Long Run and Taper.
Fitness & Training
Before you start running, you need to find footwear suited to your running technique. You can get your gait analysed at a running shop or footwear specialist. This will measure impact distribution when your foot hits the ground, and determine the kind of support your running shoes need.
Next up, we suggest downloading a running app to help you train. Apps are a great way to personalise your plan. They use biometric data and running experience to set runs varying in distance and pace. Strava is a good app for social running, whereas Map My Run is handy for route setting. Other apps include ASICS and Nike+ Run Club.
Finally, before you hit the road, give some thought to goal-setting. Goals compartmentalise your overall programme, which helps keep you motivated, as the target is constantly changing. Scheduling your runs may seem boring, but it vastly improves the efficiency of your training plan, meaning that you’ll reach your milestones quicker.
If you’re fresh off the couch, start by doing a 20-30 minute walk. After you’re comfortable with that, incorporate some small intervals of jogging in, until you reach a point where you’re alternating between walking and jogging every 3-5 minutes. As your fitness improves, you’ll find your jogging intervals becoming longer, while the time you spend walking gradually decreases, until you’re jogging for the full 30 minutes.
This initial phase is so important. It may be frustrating and more time consuming than you'd previously realised, but to build up from scratch to being able to run constantly for half an hour is a massive accomplishment, and your entire subsequent programme will be based on the foundation you have built. This is also the period where you are most at-risk of injury, so remember to take it slow!
Right, now that you can run for half an hour, you’re ready to start setting yourself those goals we mentioned a few moments ago. 5km is a reasonable first target. Chances are, if you’re already jogging for half an hour, you might not be a million miles away either! Use the earlier runs to consolidate your technique and regulate your breathing, so you’re expending as little energy as possible whilst running.
10km is the natural progression from here, and again it may take longer than you thought. This is mainly due to the ten per cent rule, which dictates that you shouldn’t increase your weekly mileage by more than (you guessed it) ten per cent. You can use your rest days to accelerate the distance run, but only if you feel comfortable. For example, if one week you run 4 x 6km (24km total), the following week you could add an extra rest day, which will allow you to run up to 9km on your 3 runs, thereby remaining compliant with the ten per cent rule.
We suggest entering at least one local 10km event during your training programme. This will give you some great race day experience, and provides a good chance to don your gear and practice competing alongside other runners.
Once you’ve gone past 10km, it’s just a question of keeping going. Listening to music or podcasts, running with friends or colleagues and mixing up your routes can all help to keep motivated. If you have a bad run (which will happen from time to time), just forget about it and move on! Most importantly, if you feel any tightness or discomfort, pull up immediately: By continuing your run you are likely to aggravate the problem.
Nutrition & Hydration
As your training plan progresses, and your runs last longer, your body will quickly start to demand more fuel. Within an hour of completing your run, your body will readily start reminding you of all the calories it's burnt. Be sure to gradually increase your consumption to replace the extra energy your muscles are getting through, with a particular emphasis on carbohydrates: Stored in the body, this is glycogen.
Experts say that your strategy for taking in calories and fluid on race day can have a strong influence on your marathon performance. If you've done a good job of glycogen-loading during the week before your race, you'll have stored about 2,000 to 2,400 calories of glycogen. During a marathon, the average runner burns around 100 calories per mile: 80 per cent of these are supplied by carbohydrates, with the remaining 20 per cent by fat (this proportion varies depending on fitness and running speed). You therefore need at least 2,000 calories of carbohydrates during the marathon. Sports drinks and energy gels offer a solution, ensuring you have the carbohydrates you need to get through the race.
How much you need to drink during the marathon to minimise dehydration depends on your body size and pace, the heat and humidity, and your sweat rate. Research has shown that most runners' stomachs can only empty around 200ml of fluid every 15 minutes during running. This represents roughly 800ml per hour. If you drink more than that, the extra fluid will just slosh around in your stomach and not provide any additional benefit. You can experiment with how much liquid your stomach will tolerate during the latter stage of your training programme.
Let's assume that you consume 200ml of fluid per hour during the race: A typical 6 per cent carbohydrate drink will supply roughly 30 grams of carbohydrates; each gram of carbohydrate contains approximately 4 calories, which means you'll be taking in about 120 calories per hour; if you run the marathon in 4 hours, you'll take in a total of around 480 calories during the race. Even half this amount will substantially increase your chances of reaching the finish line without running out of glycogen!
Energy gels are another method of taking in carbohydrates during the race. These are often available at aid stations, but you can also carry them with you. Depending on the brand, each packet typically contains 100-125 calories of carbohydrates. Energy gels are the consistency of pudding, and must be followed by a few sips of fluid, to wash down and absorb the gel. The best time to take an energy gel is shortly before an aid station. As always, don't wait until race day to try an energy gel, as it takes practice to get the water intake right and to feel comfortable running after taking one.
Unless you're an elite runner, the best strategy on a warm day may actually be to stop for a few moments and drink at the aid stations. These are positioned along the race course at 2-5km intervals, so you should get around 10-12 stops. Stopping for 10-15 seconds at each station is only going to add a couple of minutes to your overall time, and it can actually repay you with 10-20 minutes gained by the finish line.
The Long Run & Taper
The final stage of your training plan is aptly named ‘the long run’. Consider this your practice marathon - not quite as long, but it’s the ultimate test of stamina to ensure your body is ready. We suggest a distance of around 30km is optimal. You should do your long run three weeks before the marathon, and treat it in the same way as you would the actual race. It is advisable to take a couple of energy gels and an energy drink with you, if this is indeed your race-day strategy! You should carbo-load in the 48-72 hour period preceding the run, and wear the clothing you plan to wear on race day.
Once you have completed the long run, your training plan will effectively start winding down from here. It’s vital that you keep training, but the distances and speed of your runs will steadily decrease the closer you get to race day. This is what we mean by ‘tapering’. The taper is an essential component of any marathon runner’s program. If you’ve completed your 20-mile long run three weeks before the marathon, then your main run the following weekend should be in the region of 12-13 miles, and then the following weekend you should run around 8-9 miles. We recommend a couple of shorter runs on weekdays, as you’d have been doing in previous weeks, but again the distance of these will reduce by a mile or two each week. During the taper, make sure your running pace is a little slower than the pace you would be taking on race day.
The importance of the taper can not be over-emphasised. During this period, levels of the body’s glycogen, enzymes, antioxidants and hormones all return to optimal ranges, and any muscle damage is repaired. Immune function and muscle strength also improve. Collectively, this means that your marathon performance is going to be the best it can be.
Food intake should change somewhat during the taper. In the week following your long run, take in a lot of protein to aid the repair and recovery of muscle tissue. If you’re not a meat eater, try to incorporate eggs, beans, dairy and soy products into your meals. In the second week, we’d suggest lessening the protein and ensuring that around a third of your daily calories come from fat, preferably unsaturated fats such as fish and nuts.
Finally, over the five days before the marathon, that’s when you really start to hit those carbohydrates. It's important here to keep your sodium levels up, so try not to restrict salt in your diet. By contrast, you should keep coffee, alcohol, and any other diuretics to a minimum during this period, so focus on drinking regular small amounts of water.
All of the above information will be presented in your pre-departure briefing video, and regular reminders to aid your training plan will be emailed to you each month. Most of the information to help aid your preparation can also be found in your Briefing Pack.
Choose a Challenge is an adventure travel specialist, with many of our team having previously taken on trekking and marathon challenges. While information nowadays is widely available online, we welcome any questions or concerns from our participants. If you do need any advice on preparing for your marathon, please don’t hesitate to contact us, and we will be more than happy to help.