If you’re a marathon runner, you’ll understand that there’s a lot more to running a marathon than simply being a good runner. Below, I provide my top five tips to help you run a successful marathon.
Running a marathon requires both physical and mental strength. The physical attributes are related primarily to your aerobic capacity. How well are you able to run long distances at a comfortable pace with a low heart rate?
Your mental capabilities revolve around your thought patterns. How do you handle being in a tough situation, and what thoughts arise when you begin to fatigue? Answering these questions will lead to more focused training.
A common misconception is that the harder you push yourself, the faster you’ll run. This only leads to increased stress and ill health. Initially, running three to four times a week is enough, with recovery days of no exercise in between.
As an example, I ran my fastest marathon, the New York Marathon, in 2016 at a time of 3.44.10. I’m 52 years old and I did it on a base of 250km, which I only started clocking up in May of that year due to a rehab program I was working on. I was very specific about the quality of my training, and it worked.
Update: In November 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, I ran my best marathon ever by myself. 3.26 using exactly the same approach.
Understanding the emotion behind why you run will keep you motivated. Write down what excites you about marathon running and the emotions behind the reasons.
Thinking of these reasons and feeling the emotions behind the words will push you to stay focused when you feel like giving up or are tempted to choose a lie-in over a run.
As an example, you may get excited about the time you have for “me time” and the emotions of feeling peace, calmness, or being in the zone. Everyone will feel something different.
For me, it’s being able to have a deep sense of running by feel. I get excited about being able to know what my cadence, heart rate, and the pace is. I call this being totally in tune with my body.
With the theory of “enclothed cognition,” research suggests that the more we wear clothes that make us feel like a runner, the more likely we are to adopt the behaviors of a runner. By embracing your running personality, you’ll be more committed to training and racing.
Examples include wearing a road ID or your running watch during the day and placing photos of yourself running or crossing the finish line in your office.
Many people use the fact that they are training for a marathon as an excuse to eat badly or over-eat. Unfortunately, for most people, this is not a good enough excuse to over-indulge, especially if you’re already overweight.
No amount of exercise is going to help you lose weight if you’re eating poorly. The older you get, the more you’ll start to realize that your body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to. I experienced this firsthand and even reversed my weight issues four years ago.
As a marathoner, I struggled for six years wondering why I could never lose the belly I had around my waist. I was following the prescribed low-fat, high-carb diet, running 70 kilometers a week and, at 48, doing a 3:45 marathon. Yet I was always hungry and had to get two massages a week for sore calves.
After making a dietary change and becoming fat-adapted, I am now a lean 141 pounds and have no inflammation that requires therapy. Just like Prof. Noakes says, “If you have to exercise to regulate your weight, your diet is wrong!” To read more about my story, go here.
I would like to help you become the best runner you can be and help you run the marathon of your life. If you want me to guide you to greatness, feel free to read the successful testimonials of people just like you.
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
We seem to have this belief that we can’t miss a swim, ride, or run session, yet we are willing to miss the very session that can help us develop significantly for our sport. In my opinion, integrating strength, mobility, and power work into the training program is equally as important as focusing on the three race disciplines.
Following a properly prescribed professional strength and power conditioning program will enhance your ability to grow power on the bike, allow for a much smoother transition to the run, and help you really take off and beat the field home.
No time in the gym can replace swim, riding, and run training. However, a properly designed strength program will enable you to optimize all three disciplines, which will better your race performance.
This program should generally be preceded by a Functional Movement Screen (FMS) to ascertain any fundamental areas of concern that would limit your progress.
Essentially, your strength training should run parallel to your endurance plan. Both are equally important pillars of any triathlete’s training and subsequent performance.
Many athletes make the mistake of thinking that it’s enough to hit the gym two or three times a week and do a few fitness, kettlebell, or CrossFit classes without a plan.
This approach rarely has a positive impact on triathlon performance.
Unfortunately, non-specific strength sessions are a waste of time, as repeating any program without progression won’t yield results. Including random strength training sessions in the off-season so as not to impact the heavy load during the endurance and race phases of training is not the answer either.
Even the athletes who start off the season with great strength goals can drop off after a few weeks when life stress gets in the way or they become demotivated by lack of improvement due to not having a progressive program. If one is not mentally prepared and physiologically adapted to the importance of the training, it’s easy to give up.
During my time as a coach, I’ve noticed that only a small minority of triathletes have a year-round progressive challenging strength and power program that is built by a professional strength and conditioning coach.
These programs are designed to yield the results needed to optimize all aspects of racing, as well as help to reduce stress by offering a more balanced training load. In my opinion, every triathlete should follow one of these programs.
I believe there are several reasons that a large number of triathletes do not consider time in the gym to be critical to their performance. I’ve listed a few below:
There are four key exercises that you can do right now to increase your strength and power and improve your racing.
If you’re interested, email me and I will share some short videos I’ve made of some of the best exercises and activation drills you can do to help you optimize your performance. You can also follow me on YouTube.
Andre Obradovic is an ICF Leadership PPC Level Coach, A Primal Health Coach, a Certified Low Carb Healthy Fat Coach, & a Certified Personal Trainer. Andre is also a Founding member of the Dr. Phil Maffetone MAF certified Coach. He is an Ambassador for the Noakes Foundation, and a regular subject matter expert lecturer for the Nutrition Network (a part of the Noakes Foundation) Andre has completed 16 x 70.3 Ironmans and in 2017 he competed in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships. He has completed 18 Marathons and over 30 Half Marathons. Andre currently focuses his athletic competition on Track and Field with the occasional Marathon.
