Starting A Marathon Training Plan? Here’s what you need to know!
Marathon season is officially here and whether you are running for the first time or you are a seasoned racer - there’s a few things to consider when starting your training plan…
Have you got the correct training plan?
We cannot stress enough how important it is to have the correct training plan when taking on something as big as a marathon. Ask yourself some questions about the plan you have such as:
Did it come from a reputable source - was it tailored to you and your schedule or did you just download it from a generic website?
Is it realistic to your target? There’s no point in picking a plan that’s aimed at a sub 3 marathon if you’re aiming to run it in 4.5 hours!
Is it working for you? Is it factoring work, rest time, other commitments? All these things need to be considered too.
2. Have you scheduled in your training runs?
Unfortunately when you take on a marathon, you are sacrificing a significant chunk of time to training especially at weekends. It’s not realistic to think that you can run every now and then and that will be sufficient for race day. It is essential that you have scheduled in each run on your training plan with enough time to complete it properly - particularly your long runs.
Of course we have to allow for injuries, illness and other setbacks that crop up along the way but if you haven’t already, you need to sit down with your diary and schedule in those runs if you want to avoid a bad race day!
3. Nutrition
You may already be well versed in how to balance your diet and maintain good eating habits. However, when it comes to marathon training there are extra things to consider such as:
How are you fuelling your long runs?
What is your post run nutrition plan?
Do you need to increase certain foods?
Pre and Post Run nutrition is incredibly important as this how you fuel your body and aid the recovery process. Sometimes this can mean eating at different times to normal to fit around training, or including foods in your diet that you haven’t before. Whatever it means for you. it’s good to start trying these things out now so that when you start those extra long runs and build up to race day, you are prepared and you know what suits your body best!
