How to train for a marathon

First principles

• Consistency beats heroics. Twenty consistent weeks of moderate work outperforms ten weeks of inspired work followed by injury.
• Most running should be easy. Roughly 80% of weekly volume at a conversational pace, 20% harder. This is the well-supported "polarised" or "80/20" guideline.
• Volume is the engine. The single best predictor of marathon performance is how much you can comfortably run per week, sustained over months.
• Specificity wins late. The closer to race day, the more your hard sessions should look like the marathon: sustained efforts at goal pace, on tired legs.

Types of run

Easy run

Conversational pace — you can speak in full sentences. This is most of your weekly mileage. It builds aerobic capacity and capillary density, and it's where you accumulate volume without breaking yourself.

Long run

The single most important session. Builds endurance, fat-burning capacity, mental durability, and gives you a chance to practice fueling. Typically 90 minutes to 3 hours, ramping to a peak of 32–35 km in the final weeks. Most long runs are easy; some advanced plans add goal-pace segments late in the run.

Threshold (tempo) run

Sustained effort at "comfortably hard" — roughly the pace you could hold for an hour all out. Usually 20–40 minutes of work, sometimes broken into intervals (e.g. 3 × 10 min). Improves the pace at which lactate starts to accumulate, raising your sustainable race speed.

Intervals (VO₂max work)

Shorter, faster repeats — 400 m to 1 km — at 5K to 3K pace, with jogging recoveries. Builds top-end aerobic power. Useful, but not the priority for a marathoner; one session a week, often replaced with threshold work in the final weeks.

Goal-pace run / marathon-pace miles

Specific work: blocks at your target marathon pace, often inside the long run. Teaches your legs and head what the race will feel like. Essential in the final 6–8 weeks.

Recovery run

Very easy, very short — 30–45 minutes. Promotes blood flow without adding stress. Optional. Can be replaced with cross-training (cycling, swimming) or a rest day.

A typical week

An intermediate runner targeting ~3:30 might have a midweek shape like this:

Choosing a plan

Pick the plan that matches the volume you can already sustain — not the volume you wish you could.

Established frameworks worth reading: Daniels' Running Formula, Pfitzinger & Douglas — Advanced Marathoning, Hansons Marathon Method.

The taper

The last 2–3 weeks before the race, you reduce volume while preserving intensity. Typical pattern: drop weekly volume by ~20% in the third-to-last week, ~40% in the second-to-last, and ~50–60% in race week. Keep one short, sharp session each week (e.g. 6 × 1 km at threshold) to keep your legs awake.

You will feel sluggish, restless, possibly miserable. This is normal. Trust the taper.

Race day

• Nothing new. Same shoes, same socks, same gels you've practised with. Race day is not for experiments.
• Start slow. Aim for the first 5 km at 5–10 seconds per km slower than goal pace. You can almost never give back a fast start.
• Fuel early and often. See Nutrition → Race day.
• Walk the aid stations if needed — drinking on the run wastes more than the few seconds it costs.
• The race begins at 30 km. Hold form, count breaths, run the next mile only.

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Next: Nutrition — fueling the engine.