If your goal was to run a marathon in the next 6-9 months and you had NEVER done a run before, where should you start?

Start with walking 

Run/Walk intervals every other day

Start with 10-20 min and build up

Cut back weeks every 2-3 weeks

Find a half marathon half way through the training

Join a a group or find someone/something to be apart of community is everything

Don’t worry about workouts- go at a zone 2 pace

How do you know if you are running the correct pace?

Zone 2 is going to be the safest place to be- grab a HR monitor and 60-70% of your max HR

Another way to do this is think of a pace that you are not needing to take breaks from- should feel super easy. Breathing is light

Your long run pace should be the same as your easy run pace

How to build the long run

You have to have increase long runs to be able to finish a marathon

Old rules state to not have a long run be more than 30% of your weekly mileage, but these rules may not apply if you are newer to the sport and just can’t run high mileage yet. - to balance out the fact that it is risky to have such a long run relative to weekly mileage (ie a 12 mile long run when you only run 20 miles a week) we will want to keep these long runs extremely slow.

Confidence is key

Everyone is nervous about the marathon distance

I’ve done 27 marathons and still freak out about long runs

It’s good to find something to distract yourself and remain calm in the early miles

FUELING!

This is no joke. You can get ‘away’ with faster on shorter runs but when you make the jump to doing 60-90 min runs, it’s going to hit different. Fueling is EVERYTHING

Eat a carb rich breakfast

Take 60 grams of carbs PER HOUR minimum. 

Aim for 1000mg of sodium PER HOUR

Train the way you plan to race

Don’t ruin your race by putting too much time goal pressure

It’s fun to push yourself but it’s not fun to overshoot your capabilities and end of hitting the wall.