How to train for a marathon
Race Training
The marathon does not reward cleverness. It rewards months of unremarkable running done properly, and then a small number of very specific sessions on top.
The short answer
Train for a marathon with 16 to 20 weeks of consistent running: 4 to 6 runs a week, 80 percent easy, a long run building to 2.5 to 3 hours, weekly threshold work through the base and build phases, and increasing volume at goal marathon pace in the final eight weeks. Practise fuelling on every long run. Taper for two weeks, not three.
What the marathon actually asks of you
Three things, in this order.
Durability. Can your legs, tendons and connective tissue absorb three-plus hours of running? This is built by consistent weekly volume over months, not by any session.
Aerobic capacity at marathon pace. Can you run at goal pace without dipping into reserves you will need at 32km? This is built by threshold work first, then by specific marathon-pace volume.
Fuelling. Can you take on 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate an hour while running hard? This is a trainable skill and it is where a lot of otherwise well-prepared marathons come apart.
Notice that speed is not on the list. A marathon is not won by being fast; it is won by being able to hold a pace well below your maximum for a very long time.
The shape of a marathon block
Weeks 1–6: base
Volume up, gradually — no more than about 10 percent a week, with an easier week every fourth. Long run out to 2 hours. One threshold session weekly. Hills weekly. Strength work twice a week, which matters more in a marathon block than any other.
Weeks 7–13: build
The main phase and where the marathon is really made. Long run extends to 2.5 hours and starts carrying work — steady blocks, or marathon-pace segments in the back half. Threshold sessions continue. Weekly volume peaks somewhere in here.
Weeks 14–17: specific
Sessions become unmistakably marathon-shaped. Long marathon-pace blocks, long runs of 2.5 to 3 hours with 60 to 90 minutes at goal pace inside them, and full fuelling rehearsal every single time. This is the most demanding stretch of the block and the one where people get hurt if the base was thin.
Final 2 weeks: taper
Two weeks. Volume down about 30 percent in week one and about 50 percent in week two, with intensity retained. Long run of 90 minutes two weekends out, and 50 to 60 minutes easy the weekend before.
Coach's note
I use a two-week taper, not three, and I get asked about it a lot. Three weeks works for some athletes, but for most of the people I coach it produces a runner who arrives at the start line feeling flat, restless and disconnected from their pace. Two weeks with the intensity maintained keeps you sharp while giving the legs genuine recovery. Max ran his last Wellington build off about 90km a week at 3:45 to 3:50 marathon pace, and the two-week taper had him arriving feeling like he wanted to race rather than like he had been on holiday.
The four sessions a marathon is built from
- Threshold floats: 5 x 6 min at threshold, 90 sec float. Raises the ceiling marathon pace sits under.
- Marathon-pace blocks: 4 x 10 min at goal pace, 60 sec float. Builds pace-specific fitness without the cost of a long run.
- Progressive long run: 2 hr 30, with the final 45–60 min at goal marathon pace. The most valuable session in the block.
- Long steady: 2 hr 45 to 3 hr, entirely easy. Unglamorous, and the reason your legs hold at 35km.
A typical week in the specific phase
- Monday: Easy 50–60 min
- Tuesday: Marathon-pace session — 4 x 10 min at MP, 60 sec float
- Wednesday: Easy 60 min + strides
- Thursday: Steady 50 min or easy 60 min
- Friday: Easy 40 min or rest
- Saturday: Easy 50–60 min
- Sunday: Long run 2 hr 30 – 2 hr 45, back half progressive
Tuesday and Sunday are the two loaded days. Everything else exists to make those two possible.
Fuelling: the part people skip
Aim for 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour on race day. Some runners tolerate more with training; almost nobody tolerates it without practice.
Practise on every long run over 90 minutes. Use exactly what you will use on race day, at the same intervals. A gut that has been trained to absorb carbohydrate while running is a genuine, measurable performance advantage — and a gut that has not is the most common reason for a good marathon build producing a bad marathon.
Drink to thirst. There is no need to weigh yourself or follow a schedule.
How to race it
The first 10km should feel almost boringly easy. If it does not, your goal pace is wrong.
Through halfway, be no more than 60 seconds ahead of even pace, and ideally right on it. From 21 to 32km, hold pace and focus on rhythm and fuelling. From 32km, it becomes a different event — the pace is the same, the effort is not, and this is what all those long runs were for.
Wellington's marathon course is largely flat and along the harbour, which means wind is the main variable rather than hills. Plan for it. Tuck in behind others on exposed stretches and do not spend energy fighting a headwind at the halfway mark that you will need at 35km.
Common mistakes
Too much marathon-pace running too early. It feels productive and it is expensive. Build the base first.
Long runs too hard. The single most common error. If your long run is at 15 seconds per kilometre quicker than it should be, you are training for a race you are not going to have the legs to finish.
Choosing a goal time from a 10km result. Race equivalence assumes marathon-specific training. If you have not done the long runs, your predicted time is fiction.
Cramming. A marathon block is 16 to 20 weeks on top of an existing base. It is not something to start from scratch.
New shoes, new gels, new anything on race day. Ever.
What if you miss training?
Fitness does not disappear in a week. A missed week is a rounding error in a 16-week block. Two or three missed weeks mid-block means adjusting the goal, not abandoning it — usually by taking the goal pace back 5 to 10 seconds per kilometre and running a controlled, sensible race.
What does not work is trying to make up lost training. That is how a missed week becomes an injury.
