207. What fitness level do you need before training for your first marathon?

www.run4prs.com Training for your first marathon! Many people have a bucket list item of running a full marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles. It is a long ways to go. Before your first marathon, it may seem unfathomable to run 26.2 miles, but with training, you can get there. We are going to dedicate this entire episode to training for your first marathon. We will go over how much you should be running before you start officially training, how long you should train for, and the rules you should follow for long runs and increasing mileage.

What level do you need to be at before you start training for a marathon

How long does it take to go from ‘never ran in my life’ to running 3-5 miles without stopping

Easy runs, 10% rule

run/walks

You want to be able to get to a place where you can run for 90 min and not need to take significant time off

30 min long run, 20 min long run, 35 min long run, 20 min long run, 40 min long run, 25 min long run, 45 min long run, 20 min long run, 55 min long run, 30 min long run, 60 min long run, 30 min long run, 65 min long run, 40 min long run, 70 min long run, 35 min long runs, 75 min long run, 45 min long run, 85 min long run, 45 min long run, 90 min long run, 45 min long run, 95 min long run

If you increased every other week starting at a 30 min long run, it would take you 23 weeks or 5.5 months to build up to over 90 min

Many people CAN get away with doing more but you want to be safe about it

No more than a 10% increase per week

We recommend no more than 33% of your weekly mileage be your long run, so to have a 10 mile long run, we would want to be at around 25-30 miles per week

It can take months to build to that point

Benchmarks

Runs 90 min for a long run

Runs 20-25 miles per week

Has been running for 6+ months

Has desire to run 26.2 miles

Doesn’t have any recent injuries

How long should someone train for their first marathon

If you don’t have the above benchmarks you may do more like a 6 month cycle

If you have a more solid base like coming out of college xc, you could get away with closer to a 12 week cycle

16 weeks is pretty standard

Going slow enough on easy days: the biggest mistake we see