5 pieces of advice to succeed in your first Marathon

1) Get the objective right. If you have a half marathon time, it can help you as a reference for the full for example you can double your half marathon time and add 10%. So if you run 2h for the half you potentially run 4h24min for the full. Keep in mind this is only a reference, not a scientific fact or stat. If you usually do long runs at about 80% of your max Heart rate with no problem and finish your half in a great physical state you will be certainly in a 5% ratio or less compared to the 10%.

But if you have difficulties to maintain the tempo and are over 85% of your Heart rate, you need to include a muscular fatigue and revise your objective and add over 15% over the double add on of your half marathon time

How Long to Prepare

2) 10 to 12 weeks preparation? It just depends what training base you have. The body needs time to adapt to a training regime and it can only be done progressively for your body to assimilate the workload and physiological changes. If you run comfortably a half marathon and run off roads your long runs for over 1h45, 10 to 12 weeks should be fine to assimilate more training load toward the marathon. But everybody has a different base preparation, the main components are the following: – been running regularly each week, been consistent in your weekly training, eat the right amount of carbs and hydrate correctly during the week. If you are an experienced runner 10 weeks will do. If you are not a regular runner but are comfortable with Half marathon 12 weeks should be right. If you are not comfortable or struggling for a half marathon a 16 to 18 week progressive program can definitely help you.

Don’t worry about alternating running and walking, this is very common and good practice.

Finishing Your First Marathon

3) If your goal is to just finish, think “long” progress with easy and long runs. Avoid to target a time as it can bring negativity of the actual achievement of finishing. My first Marathon was in Nantes in France, I was 18 and nearly cried at the finish and did not mind the time, I was just happy I did it. Don’t worry about alternating running and walking, this is very common and good practice. What is important is you just keep moving all the time whatever happened. No need to increase training over 10min at each session each week, it will just happen and patience is your main training tool. Try to achieve 1 or 2 long runs a week and the other sessions of 45min if you just begin up to 1h.

Spacing Your Weekly Sessions

4) Weekly sessions are not necessarily running should be close to each other to create training adaptation process. This would be your minimum requirement to create a fitness pattern, for example you can do a run on Tuesday, a swim or bike, or hike on Thursday and another run on Saturday. Another example could be if you run on Tuesday and Sunday a long walk or easy cycle would be ideal on Friday

Learning to Pace Yourself

5) Learn to pace yourself. Remember your pace the day of a race or training without being influenced by friends or race pace or adrenaline of the race day. The success will come in controlling your pace. The day of your long run measure a distance per mile or km and know what time you should pass each km or mile. For example for 1h of endurance you might pace 6km at 5min40 for 4h marathon and last 25min at 6min pace. Just play with the numbers, it will give you a target at each session to reach and will motivate you. It will take off the boredom of running, and will teach you to pace and get a good rhythm in your running. Don’t worry about having breaks in long runs, walking especially if you intend to run over 4h marathon, most people do. The objective is not to finish exhausted but to finish and be happy about it. I remember doing an ironman triathlon and on the marathon part I was stubborn to run it. I realised after the event that I would have been quicker to walk than the running pace I was at, and was hurting myself for no reasons except my own ego.