Training for your first marathon

By Pete Cooper, Co-Founder of Coopah

For many runners, the ultimate challenge is the marathon. There are a range of reasons why people want to complete this, perhaps they want to test their limits, prove they can go the distance or maybe raise money for charity.

Whatever your reason, hold on to it and remind yourself of it often during the months that lie ahead. Maybe your legs are tired, maybe it’s dark and wet, it doesn’t matter because soon you’ll have a marathon medal around your neck!

The marathon is no easy feat so today’s blog post is going to go into quite a bit of detail.

Getting Started

Know your limits. It is important we start with this, the marathon can put you at a significantly higher risk of injury than any other distance so make sure you prepare properly. 

Start your training early: It is recommended that you build consistent mileage up over at least a year. Our training plans range from 6 weeks to 24 weeks and we strongly recommend that if you plan to do a marathon in the next year that you start to use one of our half marathon plans to start building up a level of fitness and strength to ensure you don’t get injured during your training. You will also notice that our plans build you up gradually using three key phases which we will discuss later.

Start small: Running a few shorter races—5Ks, 10Ks, or even a half marathon—is an excellent way to prepare physically and mentally for a first marathon.

Coopah’s four blocks of marathon training

We believe that it is vital to mix up your training each week, this is why you will see a range of training in your plan.

1. Base mileage. Our running plans build up your weekly mileage over time, we will have you running four-to-five times per week and we include strength and conditioning and yoga into this plan to reduce the risk of injury.
2. The long run. You will see each week there is a long run which builds up weekly.  Take these easy and enjoy them.
3. Speed work. Our plans incorporate intervals and tempo runs to increase your cardio capacity.
4. Rest and recovery. Adequate rest helps prevent injuries and mental burnout.

Our plans are also broken into three phases:

• Base Phase
• Strength phase
• Speed phase

Base phase

This phase is all about building up some base level fitness that will allow you to tackle the harder sessions going forward.

Our goals for this phase are:

1. Get comfortable running a speed session. These will be key to you hitting your goal in the later periods so make sure you're learning how to pace yourself through multiple efforts - being as consistent as you can with each one.
2. Get into your rhythm. Even if you're a regular runner, getting back into a training block is hard. Get into the rhythm of running every couple of days, feeling the pain in your legs, resting up and getting back out there. It'll help you when the bigger running days and sessions come.

This is actually one of the hardest parts of the plan to complete. Once you've finished the buildup, you'll be ready to take anything on!

Strength Phase

This part of the plan is going to give you the strength to push through the final third of the race. The miles will start creeping up and the sessions will get harder, but this is where you'll start to see some big improvements.

The goals for this phase are:

1. Get the miles in the bank. This phase you'll be accomplishing some key miles in your session which will mean your legs are building strength to hit your targets. Don't worry about doing the miles at your race pace yet, this phase is more about getting you strong enough to start increasing speed.
2. Building your tempo strength. Tempo runs are all about getting speed endurance. During this phase you'll be building up your Tempo distance. Keep pushing hard through the increased miles to maintain the high pace for the whole session.

Speed Phase

​​This period is all about getting you to hit that race pace. You may still feel that you are a way from running the whole distance at race pace but don't worry you'll perform very differently after finishing this period, taking some time to rest and having the adrenaline of a race.

The goals for this phase are:

1. Hit your race pace for 70%+ of your target distance. This is a big marker and if you can do this you know you are on for hitting your goal.
2. Get used to running quicker than race pace. You may think you don't need to be running shorter, quicker reps but actually running faster than race pace is key to hitting your target.

During this phase also decide what kit and nutrition you want for race day. Try different things on your tempo runs and choose what suits you the best - don't risk anything new on race day!

Remember, the marathon is the ultimate running challenge and you have got this.