Marathons

  Training for Marathons

It's Time to Begin Training for the Long Run


Creating a training schedule requires you to take stock of your current situation and then build a feasible plan that gradually increases your long run totals. Your plan must focus on injury prevention while building up your weekly mileage. Remember, a marathon is 26.2 miles. In order to complete a marathon, you will need to build up stamina and strength over a gradual period of time. Pushing too fast will only result in injury.

Important note: Make sure that you clear your plans for running in general and for your Training for Marathon Plan more specifically. You will be asking a lot of yourself as you train for a marathon and therefore, you will need to start from a place of good general health. In other words, do not attempt your Training for Marathon Plan without talking to your doctor first. Also, don't forget to stay hydrated. This is extremely important for your overall health and for your running stamina.

Your Training for Marathon Schedule

Important points to keep in mind as you create your training schedule:

  1. Before training in earnest, you should begin running 4-5 days a week and get into a consistent schedule. You should be trying to run 4-5 miles each day so that you prepare yourself for the more intense weekly training increases that will begin once you start your Training for Marathon Plan.
  2. Once you have gotten into the habit of running 4-5 days each week, then you can begin building your long runs and your mileage counts. However, it is important that you gradually increase both of these. I've seen numbers that suggest 10% is a good target each week. This is necessary to avoid possible injuries and burnout.
  3. Make sure to include days of rest each week and to vary weeks so that you are not always pushing yourself to the limit. Your body needs time to recharge after long workouts so be kind to yourself in down times.
  4. If at any time you feel pain or get fatigued then you need to take a short break from your training schedule to let your body recover.

Training for a marathon is not a simple procedure and it cannot be done in a short amount of time without serious injury. If you are starting from scratch without any running experience at all you might be looking at 1 to 1-1/2 years of training before the ‘big day'. You will want to do further research on running. Conan Dickie's "The Complete Runner e-Book" provides an excellent starting place complete with checklists, half and full marathon training schedules, and more. Click Here to learn more about his program. To motivate yourself, do some research of Marathon Schedules to find out what you want to shoot for. Pick a marathon that sounds really exciting, print out pictures and information and hang them up in your office or bedroom to remind yourself what you are striving for.

As a final note, there are great companies out there like State of the Art Marathon Training that provides basic training schedules along with pay services that provide individualized training schedules for your use.

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