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The marathon. The ultimate aspiration for runners both beginner and elite. 26.2 incredible miles that will take you from ‘runner’ to ‘marathoner’ for the rest of your life.
There are reasons less than 1% of the population of humanity has completed a marathon. It’s hard, it requires careful planning, and it requires discipline.
More importantly, it requires desire to do the work. Only you can convince yourself that the finish line will be worth it, but boy oh boy is it worth it.
There’s a lot to consider when training. What do the workouts look like? How should you eat? How do you stay injury free?
Luckily for you, all of that is packaged up right here. Let’s dig in.
Note: Experienced runner? Looking to run sub 4, 3.5 or 3 hours? Check out all of the marathon training plans available and find the one best suited for you.
This is a ‘couch to marathon’ training plan. There is no prerequisite running experience required, the mileage will start quite small and build gradually over time.
This plan will lay out daily workouts and mileage targets. While an ‘ideal’ training block may look like you completing every workout exactly as written, it’s important to remember that adjustments are perfectly acceptable. You might need to move days around, adjust mileage for time constraints, etc. And that’s all ok!
To add some structure in how to edit your plan, here are 2 quick guidelines to follow when you’re editing your workouts.
The mileage day by day is less important than the mileage of the week. Have to shorten or cancel a workout? That's ok, just add/adjust the remaining workouts to keep the total mileage close to what's written.
Any marathon training plan is useless if you're injured. If you're mid run and feel awful, slow down! or cut the workout short! It's more important to complete your workouts healthy than it is to complete them as written. Every workouts goal is to be able to do tomorrow's workout after you're done.
Most people think training for a marathon involves increasing mileage every week until you run 26.2 miles.
The reality is that’s a great way to get injured.
All of our plans follow what’s called ‘the wave’ method.
It’s the idea that you’ll gradually increase distance and intensity for 2-3 consecutive weeks, followed by a week of decreased mileage.
A progression like this allows you to progress in mileage and speed, but also allows for the recovery your body will need after throwing it into marathon training, especially if you’re a beginner with limited running experience.
Your sub 4 hour marathon training plan is measured in weeks, and each week follows a similar pattern:
There are a few goals with this schedule:
If life gets in the way and you have to skip a day or move things around, do your best to keep the Sat/Sun runs together and rest immediately following. The other days of the week can be flip flopped if needed, it’s the long Sunday run that’s the most important.
You’re going to be running a lot, burning a lot of calories, and because of that – you’re going to have to eat.
A lot. Maybe more than you think.
That doesn’t mean “eat anything in sight” though – there are too many runners who sacrifice performance because they say things like “well I ran today I can eat whatever I want!”.
While, sure, you could, if you’re shooting for a time goal like sub 4 hours, it’s important to think about food as fuel.
So what should you eat? (disclaimer: everyone is different modify this to fit your body these are just general guidelines)
The easiest way to say it is – real food.
Meats & vegetables, nuts & seeds, some fruit, little starch, as little sugar as possible.
Stick to the outside of the grocery store with the exception of spices & oil.
You’ll be looking to avoid as much processed food as possible because it can actually slow you down (despite some of it tasting really, really good).
Real, whole foods not only do a better job of fueling the body – they can also aid in joint health and keep you injury free longer than eating predominantly processed foods.
In terms of how much food to eat – well that’s unique to you – but there are tools that can help you figure it out.
Using something like MyFitnessPal can help you track calories & macros (fat/protein/carb) intake – and if you have a Garmin device, you can sync the two to see calories in vs calories burned as well.
Keep a food journal (on paper or in the app) for about a week, marking what you ate and how your workouts felt.
Play with the ratios, types of food, times you eat, until you’re consistently feeling more energy and better in your workouts – then hang out in that range for the duration of your training.
Remember, during this training plan, your food isn’t food, it’s fuel.
Make sure you’re taking in enough of the real stuff to give you the energy and stamina you need to train.
After all, if you don’t train well, chances are you won’t race well.
Now that we’ve talked about the items that make up a good training plan, let’s talk about the training plan itself and the various phases that you’ll encounter in this marathon training plan for beginners:
Building from 0, to a consistent aerobic and endurance baseline.
Gradually increase training distance & intensity
Safely achieving maximum mileage to prepare for race day
Help the body recover, and remain fresh so it can perform best on race day
Each week within the phases will be structured like the weekly schedule outlined above. The variables will include the intensity, and the length of the workouts.
The first phase of a beginner training plan is meant simply to acclimate your body to training and slowly build an endurance baseline that can be built upon.
It’s not flashy or ‘cool’, but it plays a critical role for beginners working toward their first marathon. After all, you need to start somewhere.
This phase is made up of consistent distances and intensities so your body can adjust to the effort required in a normal training week.
You’ll be getting comfortable at short/medium distances, and exploring what ‘walk running’ ratios work best for you at the onset of training. After these weeks, you’ll add just a little bit of mileage each week making the task of reaching 26.2 miles feel less daunting.
With a solid baseline set, it’s time to steadily increase your fitness as we approach peaking.
In build phase, you’ll be asked to increase your weekly mileage 10-15% per week, and you’ll start to see more workout/hard runs sprinkled in.
These increases will follow the wave method to help avoid injury as discussed above.
The last week in the wave, just before your down week, will be quite challenging. It’s during these weeks that you’ll experience the biggest jumps in distance and intensity. Since they’re followed by shorter rest weeks, you can afford to push your body a little harder knowing that recovery is around the corner. You might even experience some new PR/PBs in shorter distances during these weeks.
This is where even a beginner marathon training plan gets tough.
Your Sunday long runs are the most notable jump between the build and peak phases.
Your long runs will reach all the way up to the 20 mile mark and you’ll get your first real taste of what it’s like to run for really long periods of time.
This phase is the hardest on the body. Both because of the long distances, but also because you’ll start to feel the accumulation of all the weeks that came before these. Knowing that, here are a few important reminders:
Peak phase is challenging, no doubt, but it’s also where you hone your mental toughness. If you can get through peak phase, with all the mileage accumulation and work put in to this point – race day is a breeze!
The weird thing about tapering is it’s hard, but in its own way.
While you’re doing literally less mileage and intensity than previous weeks (especially compared to peak phase), it can be a challenge to not want to do more.
You’ve just spent weeks pushing past mental and physical boundaries, immediately doing considerably less feels, well, wrong.
And that’s totally normal.
Taper is a critical time to let your body rest and recover.
It takes over 6 months of no activity to really start to lose aerobic fitness, so your few weeks of lower mileage don’t actually impact your ability to run 26.2 miles at all.
The biggest impact comes in how your body feels on race day, and taper is designed to help it feel it’s best.
You’ve done all the hard by this point – now it’s time to go earn that finisher medal and go from marathon hopeful, to first time marathoner!