Running & Endurance
How to Train for Your First Marathon
Running 42.195 km is as much a project in patience as it is in fitness. This guide walks a first-timer from base building to the finish line, with the principles that keep you healthy and on track.
Before you start: the honest prerequisites
A marathon plan does not begin at week one of the plan; it begins with the running you have already done. Most first-timers do best if they can comfortably run for 30 minutes continuously and have a few months of consistent running behind them before starting a 16-to-20-week marathon block.
If you are not there yet, spend a base-building phase simply running easy three or four times a week until 5 km feels routine. Arriving at the start of a marathon plan already injury-free and consistent is worth more than any single workout in the plan itself.
The structure of a marathon week
A typical week has one long run, one or two quality sessions, and several easy runs. The long run builds the endurance and fatigue resistance the marathon demands; the easy runs build aerobic capacity while letting you recover; the quality sessions sharpen your pace.
The single most important rule is that easy days must be genuinely easy. Most runners sabotage their training by running easy days too hard, which leaves them too tired to do the long runs and workouts well. If in doubt, slow down.
Building the long run safely
Your long run is the centrepiece. Extend it gradually, by no more than about 10-15% per week, with a step-back week roughly every fourth week where you reduce the distance to absorb the training and lower injury risk.
Most plans build the long run to around 30-35 km before the race. You do not need to run the full marathon distance in training; the combination of long runs, weekly volume, and the race-day taper carries you the rest of the way. Run these long efforts slowly, around 60-90 seconds per kilometre slower than goal marathon pace.
Finding and rehearsing your goal pace
Set a goal based on a recent race, not a wish. A recent half marathon is the best predictor; plug it into a race-time predictor and treat the marathon estimate as optimistic unless your long runs back it up.
Once you have a goal pace, rehearse it. Include segments at goal marathon pace within some long runs so your body and mind learn what it feels like. On race day, aim to run the first half a few seconds per kilometre slower than goal pace, because going out too fast is the most common reason first-timers hit the wall.
Fuelling: training your gut
The marathon is long enough that your glycogen stores run low, so you must take on carbohydrate during the race, typically 30-60 grams per hour for first-timers, rising with experience. The mistake is waiting until race day to try it.
Practise your fuelling in long runs: take gels or drinks at the intervals you plan to use in the race, so your stomach is trained and you know what sits well. Dehydration and under-fuelling cause more first-marathon disasters than lack of fitness.
The taper and race week
In the final two to three weeks, reduce your volume while keeping some intensity, so you arrive fresh but not flat. Resist the urge to cram fitness; nothing you do in the last fortnight makes you fitter, but plenty can make you tired or injured.
Nothing you do in the last fortnight makes you fitter, but plenty can make you tired or injured.
In race week, sleep well, eat normally with a little extra carbohydrate in the final days, and plan your pacing and fuelling in detail. Lay out your kit the night before, and remind yourself that the work is already done. The race is the celebration of the training, not the training itself.