How do you improve as a marathoner? How do you run faster? These are key questions for many runners. Getting to the finish line of your first marathon is just a matter of preparation. Either through talent or with the help of a well-structured and progressive training program (or both), most people who set their minds on becoming marathoners succeed. It’s all about motivation.
If these new runners become hooked on the sport, their next goal is to get better at it. They seek to run their fastest marathon, whether it is their third or their thirty-third race. It is not that simple, but it is also not that difficult.
If you are a beginning runner who has just finished your first marathon, you will continue to improve if you do nothing else but train consistently. Most established training programs for first-time marathoners last 3 months or more. Class leaders guide their students through a graduated schedule, the main feature being a long run that gets progressively longer (usually moving upward from 6 miles to 20 miles) as marathon day approaches. Students are then sent to the starting line undertrained and well rested because experience has shown that to be the best way to ensure that they finish.
It works!
Better to be safe than sorry. And who can argue with success? Thus, most well-coached first-time marathoners run their races without the training necessary to achieve peak performance. They run comfortably slower than their talents might allow. Remember my previously reported expo exhortation: “Start slow!” First-timers finish the race thinking they probably could have run somewhat faster if they had trained harder. They are right. They can. And so can you.
Even without adopting a refined training schedule, most marathoners can improve merely by continuing to train at or near the same level. After 3 months, you will have only begun to reap the benefits of that level of dedication. Your undertrained body will continue to improve, as long as you do not overtrain it.
Here’s the key. Keep doing some running in the middle of the week. An hour is a good length for at least one midweek workout. Run somewhat longer on the weekends: 90 to 120 minutes, although no more than two or three times a month. Take 1 or 2 rest days weekly, as suggested in my novice training schedules. Fill in the rest of the week with runs at various short distances, and mix in some running at near your marathon pace. The accumulation of miles over a period of time will help you improve. You will get better. That’s a promise!
Consistency is a word you already have encountered several times in this book, and I am not through using it. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of maintaining consistency in your training. Consistency does not mean running 20-milers every weekend; it does mean maintaining a base level of fitness even when you are not training for a specific race.
Research by Edward F. Coyle, PhD, of the department of kinesiology at the University of Texas at Austin, suggests that runners begin to “detrain” (lose their fitness) after 48 to 72 hours and that it takes 2 days of retraining to regain the fitness lost for every single day of training that is skipped. That does not mean you should never rest, but if you take extended periods off, it will take you longer to come back.
Not every runner wants to hear that. When I have quoted Coyle’s research online from time to time either on my Facebook page or in a tweet, I sometimes get brushback from individuals who object to hearing that the 18 weeks of hard work done preparing for a marathon may be gone forever if they don’t continue training at least at a somewhat lower level.
I need to remind them that consistency is critical to marathon success. You do not need to maintain continuous peak condition, but settle on a consistent level of training that you know you can maintain for 12 months of the year. When it comes time to aim for a specific marathon or half marathon, you can increase your level of training—slightly. The important thing is to maintain an effective endurance base.
The ACSM guidelines for fitness suggest 3 or 4 days of exercise a week, 20 to 60 minutes a day. That’s the minimum fitness formula for maintaining good health, beyond which Kenneth H. Cooper, MD, president and founder of the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas, suggests you are exercising for other reasons. For the marathoner, that will be true: Your reason is to stay in shape to run marathons. You will need—and want—to run more than the time allotted in Dr. Cooper’s formula. But the basic pattern offered in the ACSM guidelines still applies to marathoners.
For four years, I coached the boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams at Elston High School in Michigan City, Indiana, and I also worked with the distance runners during the track season. Between seasons, many of us ran together as much for fun as for fitness. I encouraged my runners to keep diaries, and I tried to examine the entries periodically to monitor the students’ conditioning programs. I discovered that the less dedicated ones would train hard for 3 or 4 days, but then they would miss 3 or 4 days of running. They thought they were staying in shape, but they were actually sliding backward—as they proved when they appeared for practice the first day of the season. The students who trained consistently improved; the others did not.
As a result, I told them this: Never go 2 days without running. One day of missed training is no problem. That qualifies as rest. But 2 or 3 lost days in a row (taking into account Dr. Coyle’s research) equals lost conditioning—and inevitably will mean poorer performances once the season begins.
At peak training, most elite runners average 100 miles or more a week. You cannot compete successfully as an elite runner in the marathon, or even as a near elite, unless you run a lot of miles. During my best years, that was my mileage goal for just before my most important races, but maintaining that level is not easy. Most runners would crash if they attempted to run 100 miles weekly or even half that many miles. Determining the level that is best for you is tricky and may take several years of experimentation, but once you have reached a comfortable level, you can reap the benefits of success.
The best way to determine your optimal mileage level is to keep a training diary, as I advised the Elston runners. Most runners now use computer diaries that allow you to record everything from your mile splits to your heart rate to a map of the course you ran. (I even have an app that provides daily workout data while I offer encouraging words: “One mile to go. You can do it!”) Or you can simply mark mileage on a wall calendar.
Never underestimate the power of a simple calendar sheet attached by magnets to your refrigerator. The advantage of even a simple diary is that when things go wrong—or right—you can analyze your training and determine the reasons. Those older, upstairs training diaries, recording several decades of workouts, fill a full shelf of the bookcase in my office and prove very valuable when I am writing articles for Runner’s World and books such as this.
During special periods, such as when I was preparing for a marathon or peaking for maximum performance at the World Masters Championships, I would take poster board and a black marker and make my own diary calendars showing 3, 6, or 9 months—whatever the training for that particular race required. I would tack the poster-size calendar to a cork wall in my basement that I passed each day before and after running. It served as both a visual record of what I had done and a reminder of what I had to do. In addition to what I wrote in my diary, I would mark weekly mileage totals and sometimes specific key workouts, such as the distance of my long run.
I used my record-keeping system as motivation but also as a safety net. If I noticed that I had run 4 consecutive weeks at too high a mileage level, that would trigger a reaction: Hmm. Maybe I should back off my training for a week to avoid getting injured.
Finding the appropriate training level is not easy—particularly because that level may change as you get stronger or older—but it is essential if you want to improve as a marathoner.
If there is one difference between fast runners and those who finish at the back of the pack, it is that the fast runners seem to have no qualms about running slowly. They are not embarrassed about it. One year at the Boston Marathon when I was in town appearing at the expo but not running the race, I went out the day before for an easy jog of a few miles along the Charles River. Returning, I arrived at a pedestrian bridge across Storrow Drive at the precise moment two Kenyan runners arrived.
I had seen them at a press conference the day before, so I smiled and nodded, and they smiled back. After we crossed the bridge and continued to jog up a side street toward our hotels, I realized I was jogging faster than they were! In fact, I had to slow my pace to avoid embarrassing myself by passing them. The following day I saw them on TV at the front of the lead pack. If runners capable of sub-2:10 marathons are not embarrassed to jog very slowly, you should not be, either.
The important message is not that fast runners often run slowly but that they train differently each day. If I had to cite one mistake made by inexperienced marathoners when they seek to improve their performance, it is that they run too many of their miles at the same pace and over the same distance. There is little variety, and that limits their improvement.
If I am running slowly on one day, it is probably because I ran hard the day before—or want to run hard the next day. To improve, you need to add intensity to your program. You may not necessarily need to run sprints on the track, but you need to run at least as fast as race pace. Very few runners can run race pace day after day. In order to train at a high level of intensity on certain days, most of us need to train at a low level of intensity on other days. That’s where slow running comes in.
From a scientific standpoint, slow running is important for two major reasons.
Caloric burn. This varies from runner to runner and depends on size and metabolism, but many of us burn 100 calories for every mile we run. Burn 3,600 calories by running 36 miles and you lose 1 pound. It almost doesn’t matter how fast you run those miles. You can even walk and burn a large number of calories per mile. And if your form is awful compared with that of smooth-striding elite runners, the more calories per mile you probably burn. Scientists quibble over the precise numbers, but calorie loss is related to foot-pounds: the amount of effort (that is, energy) it takes to push a body of a specific weight forward. One means of attaining maximum performance is to achieve optimal body weight and an optimal percentage of body fat. You can do that just as easily with long, steady distance: It will take you somewhat longer than if you ran those miles fast, but you will be less likely to become injured.
Sparing glycogen. Exercise physiologists say that when you run slowly, your body has time to metabolize fat as a source of energy. When you run fast, your body burns glycogen, a derivative of carbohydrate, as its preferred energy source. Glycogen is stored in the muscles and is a more efficient fuel, in the sense that the body can metabolize it more rapidly than fat. (That’s one reason why we marathoners favor a high-carbohydrate diet.) But by training slowly, you apparently teach your muscles to become more efficient at also metabolizing fat, thus sparing glycogen stores for those last few miles in the marathon.
Certainly, those three words sound cliché, but I keep using them online while answering questions from runners wondering whether to run or rest the next day if fatigued or injured. “Rest is best.” I figure that if you need to ask whether to take a day off, you probably already know the answer and are only waiting for me to confirm your choice: “Yes, rest is best.”
Not running is as important a part of the marathoner’s training guide as resting. That may sound somewhat confusing at first, but running a short distance at a slow pace would qualify as “rest.” A day when you cross-trained by swimming or cycling also might qualify as rest. My rest day when I was averaging 100 miles a week was 8 miles up and down the Lake Michigan beach in front of my home in the morning and 8 miles again later that afternoon. And, yes, those runs were resting compared to what I did on my hard days. But sometimes active rest is not enough; you need to take a day off when you do not run or do much of anything. Although I promote consistency as critical to success, there are times when you simply have to kick back and do nothing. And I mean nothing! You need to be consistent about resting as well as training. Take a week off. Take a couple of weeks off. Yes, you will lose some fitness, but you will more than make up for it when you return to training refreshed and ready to run hard again.
Following my victory in the marathon at the World Masters Championships in New Zealand one year, I flew home with no future goals. I took 2 months off. Two full months off! This was after a year and a half of intense training, when I frequently did those 100-mile weeks. It was not so much that my body needed that period of extended rest; my mind needed the rest. Okay, I did a lot of cross-country skiing during those 2 months, but that isn’t cheating too much, is it?
Knowing when to back off and take off a complete day—or even more—is one of the secrets of marathon success. It is not easy, since the traditional work ethic that has proved successful for many people suggests that more is better. That training calendar on my basement wall would be more of a hindrance than a help if it pushed me to run extra miles just to achieve mileage levels I might have planned months ago—without considering whether I have a cold, failed to get enough sleep the night before, or am overly fatigued because I spent most of the previous day on an airplane.
Rest is essential to success. In my training schedules, I program 2 days of rest into each week for first-time marathoners. Most experienced runners understand that tapering before a marathon—cutting training mileage the last week or two before the race—is important to ensuring success. Less recognized is the necessity for rest and mini tapers all through the marathon training program. Take a day off; it won’t hurt.
Does this message contradict the earlier one related to consistency, the importance of maintaining a steady schedule? Not at all, because who can better afford to take days off than someone who trains consistently?
If you hope to get better as a marathon runner, you need to pay attention to the basic elements—consistency, mileage, intensity, and rest—but those are only four of the routes available to you. Let us consider next the benefits and challenges of building up mileage.