Marathon Training & Running

On Sunday elite and recreational runners alike will line up to take part in London Marathon, an iconic event on most people’s radar, runners or not.  What makes them aspire to, train for, and take part in something that most people don’t do; run a marathon?

The Addiction of Marathon Running

For me there is something quite unique about training for and running a marathon, when I ran my first marathon I ran it for and with my dad, he wanted us to run a marathon together for his 60th birthday, slippers would have been my preferred choice of present, but as I’d just started running and running races together was rare due to the 250 miles distance between us, I thought why not. The choice of marathon was the Isle of Wight, the race was in the right month; it was local to me, and it was cheap, ticked all the boxes, except nobody mentioned the hills!

I’m not sure where I got my training plan from or even if I had one, I certainly didn’t have a GPS watch, I just ran 3 times a week, with a long run at the weekend.  But something magical happened as the long miles flew by (they probably didn’t, but it was a long time ago), I became stronger, fitter and more confident.  We completed the marathon; and let me tell you there weren’t any “fun” runners taking part, just very thin, professional looking runners who used this marathon as a training run for their Ironman.  We came last, only our families, the race director and a St John’s Ambulance were at the finish line.

But I loved how it made me feel and the rest is history and as a runner and a coach I’ve learnt so much since then and I’m sure I’ve still got more to learn.

Generally, I’ve found that your first marathon is like cooking the first pancake from a batch of batter, sometimes it works out other times you just must learn from the experience, throw it in the bin and try again still using the same batter but getting a different result. This is mainly due to the unpredictability of the marathon and that you need a little bit of luck along the way.

Which leads me nicely onto how training plans for a marathon are like recipes, there are steps to take and ingredients that are vital to the success of the race, if you skip steps and change the ingredients with knowing what you are doing, you can end up in a big mess.

The marathon isn’t just a difficult race, the training is difficult too and that’s part of the attraction too, the training involves a lot of time and effort with an increased risk of injury, the race itself is hard and unpredictable, it will push your mind, body, and soul. Why do it? Because running a marathon is an incredible accomplishment.

You learn to be disciplined and controlled on your training runs, learning to run on feel, to listen to the body’s response, know how it feels when you’ve just tipped over into the anaerobic system, which means you’re going too fast. Having this discipline is such a strength, using your watch as a tool and not an overlord can give you confidence that you didn’t know you possessed.

By listening to your body, you can interpret changes as the race progresses, knowing that running economy gets worse with fatigue, understanding the longer you run for the harder the perceived effort can feel; being disciplined to know if you look at your watch and see a number you don’t like, that this can completely mess with your head and ruin your race.  So many factors can give a false reading on your GPS - buildings, trees, the number of people all using their GPSs.  Being mindful of the reliability and validity of a reading from your watch and listening to your body can make a big difference to how you finish.

And the goal on race day is to hold your pace all the way to the finish line and not set out too fast at the start. However, this is the hardest part of marathon training and running, why? because you feel great, you’ve trained, you’ve tapered, you’re on the start line, you are READY!

But be aware of the 4:1 rule.  For every 1 second per mile faster than your race pace that you run in the first 10k of the marathon, you will give back up to 4 seconds per mile in the final 10k of the marathon.  This means if your race pace was 10 mins per mile and instead you averaged 9:45 minutes per mile (15 seconds per mile faster than your optimal race pace) in the first 10k, then you are likely to find you average 11 mins per mile (60 seconds per mile slower than your race pace) in the final 10k.  The ratio between 60 seconds and 15 seconds is 4 to 1.

All the discipline, control and hard work can vanish in a puff of smoke as you surge with the crowd of runners; the consequences of which can be that the last 10k can feel like hell on earth, but it doesn’t have to. Remember what I said about learning from the first marathon and trying again?

The First & Second Marathon

Emily ran her first marathon in 2017 at Bournemouth, her training was brilliant, the grit, determination and dedication was tangible. She was ready! The day itself did not go to plan, Emily surged with the crowd and set off too fast, the route was hilly and at times unsupported; she felt rubbish for the majority of the run and her finish photo on the left shows her pain.

Four years later, Emily ran Liverpool marathon in 2021, the training was still brilliant but the tough lesson was learnt from Bournemouth and she didn’t set off too fast. The photo on the right shows how differently Emily finished; the difference in times? Bournemouth 5hrs 25mins, Liverpool 5hrs 20 mins.

The Stats

The stats on the left are from Bournmouth and the right from Liverpool. You can clearly see the difference in the pace of each mile, Emily set off at 10:10 min miles at Bournemouth, her goal pace was 11 min miles. Her last mile was 13.25, 3 mins slower than the first, 4:1 ratio.

The start at Liverpool was cautious and you can see the consistency of pacing with no walking at mile 22 onwards.

Thank you Emily for sharing your story with us, the difference in enjoyment of the marathon is evident, I’m so glad you didn’t let the first one beat you, that you learnt from your experience and made a new pancake!