How to Train for a Marathon

Video Transcript

DAVE CAMPBELL: Hi. My name is Dave Campbell, and I want to talk to you about how to train for a marathon. The key element needed to complete a marathon successfully is cardiovascular endurance, and the key workout to build that capacity will be your weekly long run. The other ability that you need to successfully finish a marathon is muscular endurance, so you will do also during the week some shorter, faster runs that will focus on building your strength and improving your efficiency. Your weekly long run should build to 20 miles or three and a half hours. And you need to complete three to six of these to have the endurance and the confidence to finish your first marathon. Easy training days should precede and follow this workout. The other days of the week will include a day spent running hill repeats. Another key workout needs to be a tempo run, and the tempo run needs to be done at about 80% to 85% of max heart rate and in duration of 10 to 30 minutes of working at that capacity. You also need to do a weekly threshold run. That will be a more intense run. The intervals will be three to six minutes long with two or three minutes recovery in between and this could build on a weekly basis, and the intensity of that should be about 86% to 90% of max heart rate. Now the long run, on the other hand, should be done at an easy pace, about 70% of max heart rate. And again, make sure you got an easy day preceding and following that long run. The remaining days of the week can be filled with cross-training activities like swimming or cycling to help provide active recovery while also boosting cardiovascular fitness. Assuming you start with moderate conditioning, you will need about 20 weeks to train for a marathon. You need to build your volume for two to four weeks and then back off on the following week in order to allow for adaptation and recovery to occur.