- 2:59:59, how great does that sound?
So much better than three hours, that's for certain.
Okay, let me explain in a moment.
If you are a marathon runner,
and you've got under three hours 20
or maybe somewhere a little bit closer
to that three hour barrier,
I bet at some point you have dreamt
of going under three hours for the marathon.
However, to run 26 miles in less than three hours
does require a lot of strength, fitness,
consistency in your training, the correct pacing,
the right nutrition, as well as a really strong mind
and that is a lot to comprehend.
So today, I'm going to be helping you by breaking it down
and guiding you to training for a sub three hour marathon.
(upbeat music)
Before we get on to the hard work,
we probably should address the pace
that you're going to need to hold to hit set time.
And also where your half and 10k times should be at
as I'm afraid, it isn't quite as simple
as just doubling your half marathon time.
So for this, we're going to presume that you've worked hard
on your endurance and your fitness is in a good place.
Well, if that's the case, then a 10k time
of around 37 minutes or a half marathon of around 1:23, 1:24
should mean you're on track for that sub three marathon.
It does, however, depend a little bit
on how your speed of fitness transfer
from the shorter distances up to the marathon
and slightly on the race conditions on the day.
And if you are interested in seeing where you're at now,
then you can find various calculators online,
which just need your current five or 10K
or half marathon time to predict your full time.
So you might have worked it out.
In order to come in under that three hour marker,
you'll need to average 4:15 per kilometer
or 6:50 per mile.
Yep, that's not hanging about.
It is important to be ambitious,
but you still need to be realistic with those goals.
So say your 10K or half math and prediction
Gives you closer to a three hour 30 marathon.
And then for the time being,
I'd recommend reassessing those goals.
And working on that over a longer period of time.
(upbeat music)
I warn you now it is going to involve
a lot of hard work and training.
But like I touched on earlier,
it depends slightly on where you're starting from.
But let's presume you've got a good base
and you've recently run a 10K or a half marathon
on the pace that you need to hold.
Well, ideally, you want to have a minimum of 12 weeks,
but ideally 16 weeks of structured training,
and now you need to be hitting weeks
of around 35 to 40 miles or 60 kilometers in total.
And that's then going to peak at around 60 miles per week
or 100 kilometers a few weeks before your target marathon.
That might sound like a lot of mileage
and it is a fair amount.
But it's important that you build it up gradually
so your body has time to adapt
and strengthen to that load.
And these runs are going to be made up
of three key types of sessions.
So a long run, a tempo style session and some speed work.
And around those, you're also going to have your
easy recovery style runs, and then steady runs
to make up that mileage.
And that does mean you're ideally
going to be needing to do five to six runs a week
in order to fit all of this in.
(upbeat music)
Let's take a closer look at some of these key sessions
starting with the long run.
Now this one it is essential that you build it up gradually,
week by week.
And ideally you want to be peaking a few weeks before
with the longest run of around 18 to 20 miles,
but nothing more than 22 miles I would recommend,
some people make the mistake of making their long run
almost as long as the marathon
but actually ends up being counteractive
because it gives your body so much stress
that you take a long time to recover
and therefore can't do the next training session.
So it kind of loses its benefit.
And these sessions will help you to get aerobically fitter
and really build that engine making you stronger as a runner
and hills are brilliant here too,
and the two can actually be interchanged.
So aim to include
either one of these sessions once per week,
an example hill session would be a 70 minute run,
which includes a 15 minute warm up,
and then eight lots of two minutes
strong up hill with a jog recovery back to the bottom,
and then finish that off with a warm down
until you've completed a total of 70 minutes.
And you can build this up by the number of reps
or the length of the hill.
Alternatively, you could do a tempo run
and for this is quite a nice idea to incorporate
some sort of event whether it's a five k Park run
or your local five or 10k as it's just going to naturally
make you work hard
without having to think too much about it.
So for this, ensure you've done really strong warm up
and you complete a nice long run off afterwards
to still make sure that run is a decent leg.
Alternatively, you could do breaks off that
so maybe two and a half k reps
I've got stretch near me,
which I do and I start off by just doing
two lots of two and a half k
and as I get close to my peak mileage
a few weeks before my key marathon,
and I'll build that up to four or five.
You're running a marathon, yes, I know it's not a sprint,
but you still require a certain amount of speed work
and it's a fairly broad title.
But speed work basically means
anything quicker than your race pace.
So in this situation that's anything quicker
than four minutes 15 per kilometer,
and for this, you could head down to the track.
Alternatively, find a nice hard flat surface
where you can really focus on running fast,
and then choose a distance,
I'd recommend anything from 400 meters up to a mile
and depending on what distance you do,
you could alter the amount of rest and the reps accordingly
and trying to target a pace
of around four minutes a kilometer or quicker.
For example, eight 800 meters on the track
or eight lots of three minutes if you're on the road,
and for this aim to run fast but a sustainable pace
with 60 seconds or 200 meters easy for recovery.
And make sure you warm up well for a session like this
and then a decent warm down
will also help with your recovery.
And on this topic, it's worth actually noting
that there is a difference between
an easy run and a steady run.
So a steady run, you're working aerobically,
but you're still thinking about maintaining form,
it should be at a conversational pace.
And it's just letting your stride flow.
And I don't want you getting too fixated on pace.
But if you do want a bit of a guide,
I'd say somewhere between a 4:30
and a five minute per kilometer pace,
whereas your easy run is very much about
just getting the blood flowing.
And just generally moving your body
so for this, you really don't need to worry about pace,
think more of effort level,
and try not to let it get much above a three out of 10.
(upbeat music)
And if you do want to mix things up a little bit,
or you're finding that your legs are struggling
to adapt to this amount of running
then you can actually swap in your easier or steady efforts
for something a little bit different.
So if you do enjoy swimming or cycling,
or maybe even going on the elliptical trainer in the gym,
then you can actually swap on these sessions for this
but still keep an eye on your heart rate and intensity.
However long your build period has been,
you still need to make sure you factor in
enough time for a taper hours
there's nothing worse than putting in the hard work
and then turning up on race day,
when your legs are still tired.
That said, you don't want to ease off too soon either
as you still need your legs to feel like
they know what that running pace feels like.
So as you do decrease, that volume
still include some faster work, so doing some strides
and a bit of race pace effort
so that your legs are staying nice and tuned.
By race day, you should have a pretty good idea
of where you're at and have that pace dialed in.
But if you are using a GPS watch,
I'd seriously recommend setting it to beep every kilometer
for your target pace just to keep you in check
because if anything and you had the right tapping,
your legs will be feeling nice and fresh
and it is really tempting to go too fast at the beginning
so you need to rein it in at the start of the marathon
because if you go too hard too early,
you will really pay for it later on.
The final aspect to consider is nutrition
and you want to nail there so before your race,
make sure you've had a high carbohydrate meal
around three hours before.
Something you've practiced with,
so you know, you can digest that.
And the 24 hours before
I recommend reducing or even taking out all of your fiber
just to give your stomach the best chance of behaving
during the race.
Hydration is also important.
So make sure you're adequately hydrated
but not over the top as
you don't want anything sloshing around.
And then it comes to during the race itself.
For this, you really do need to have practiced
especially on your long run of taking on gels or fluids,
whatever it is you're going to be using during the race.
And if you're using race nutrition,
make sure you practice with that.
If not, that you're carrying your own gels as you will
certainly need to top up your energy levels
'cause you're racing for three hours.
Anyway, I think that just leaves me to say good luck.
Trust me, it's a lot of hard work.
I know I've been there.
But I had that sub three hour target last year
and I just crept underneath it and it 100% pays off.
So go out there, enjoy it.
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