download hal higdon marathon training plan

Strength work twice a week is the ideal amount and you don't need to join a gym. This will strengthen all your muscles and stave of repetitive strain and overloading injuries.

It is also vital to develop a strength and conditioning training programme alongside your running. If you are burning to do more then low impact cross training like swimming, cycling or yoga is a better option than more running. Stick to the training plan and don't add additional runs or harder sessions.

If you push too hard and don't manage your training load correctly you are far more likely to end up with an injury which might mean you have to pull out of the race altogether. The two most common causes of injury are training load error and lack of strength training. If you are coming back from injury, spend a week or two gradually increasing your training volume, using previous weeks on the training plan as a guide. If you’ve missed two or three weeks, you should still have time to build up to your longest training runs, which are a key to race-day success. If you’ve missed four weeks or more, our best advice is to postpone your marathon, as it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get the time you want on race day having missed a month. Very few runners will get to the end of their marathon training schedule without missing some runs due to illness, injury or life getting in the way. I've missed a week of the plan, what should I do? Adaptation to the body occurs when we rest so the only way to improve is to take rest and recovery seriously. As well as the runs, the training plan includes those all important rest days - make sure you use these properly to avoid burning out or getting an injury. Work out what pace to do each of your runs at using our training pace calaculator - just tell us a recent run time and we'll do the rest. Run one mile easy to warm up and one mile easy to cool down. Marathon pace – This is the pace that you hope to maintain in the race.

Mile repeats – After a one-mile warm-up, run one mile at the given pace, then jog very slowly for half a mile to recover. This should be 30 seconds to one minute per mile slower than your goal pace. Run at an easy pace you should be able to hold a conversation. Long run – Much like an easy run, this is a long, slow distance run that will build your endurance.

Download hal higdon marathon training plan