How to Train for a Marathon Without Losing Your Strength
The plan was right. I broke two of its rules.
My training block for the Loch Ness Marathon was the best plan I've ever followed. I still broke two of its rules. (The full story, splits and all, is in my Loch Ness race report.)
I raced a half marathon that should have been the controlled first half of my peak long run. I stopped for 30 minutes, tried to carry on, and my calves cramped. The most important session of the block was gone. Then on race day, the arch of my left foot went at 28km.
The foot was bad luck. The rule I broke was not.
So I've written the plan out properly, without my mistakes in it. It's called The Strong Runner's Blueprint, and it's free. This post covers the three ideas everything else is built on. The full 14 page guide is at the bottom of the page, or you can grab it here.
It's for you if you want to run a marathon and still look, feel and train like someone who lifts. You don't have to choose.
1. Most of your runs are the wrong effort
Most amateur runners do almost every run at the same effort. Not easy enough to recover from. Not hard enough to make you faster. Medium. It feels productive because it feels like work.
That's the grey zone, and I was stuck in it. Before my last block, between 45 and 62 percent of my running time sat in Zone 3.
The research points the other way. Well trained endurance athletes do roughly 80 percent of their training at low intensity and 20 percent hard (Seiler, 2010). It isn't just an elite thing either. Recreational runners who trained around 80 percent easy improved their 10k more than a group doing more moderate work (Muñoz et al., 2014).
How to find your easy pace:
The talk test. You can speak in full sentences. If you can only manage a few words at a time, slow down.
Heart rate. Stay in Zone 2, usually around 75 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. Mine was capped at 152bpm.
Expect it to feel slow. My easy runs mostly sat between 5:50 and 6:30 per km. Some days it felt embarrassing. It worked.
Run easy days by effort, not pace. Hills, heat, sleep and stress all change your pace. The effort is what you're training.
The bit most people miss: slowing your easy runs down is what allows your hard runs to be hard. Fix this first, or nothing else works properly.
2. Three runs, three jobs
Three runs a week is enough to run a good marathon, as long as every run has a job.
Easy: builds your aerobic base and helps you recover. Conversational, Zone 2. Add distance gradually and the pace looks after itself.
Tempo: raises the pace you can hold before fatigue builds. Zone 4, roughly what you could hold flat out for an hour. For most people that's 15 to 30 seconds per km faster than marathon pace. Controlled, never raced.
Long: teaches your body to cover the distance. Build the distance first, then add marathon pace to the back end later in the block.
Progress one thing at a time. It's the same principle as adding 2.5kg to your squat: small, planned increases your body can adapt to. If your training isn't getting harder in a way you can point to, it isn't a plan.
The full guide includes a progression table for all three runs, the research on how far to push your long run, and exactly when a fourth run earns its place.
3. Keep lifting, but maintain, don't build
Strength training makes you a better runner. A meta analysis of runners found it improves running economy, meaning the same pace costs you less energy (Balsalobre-Fernández et al., 2016). That comes mainly from your nervous system and stiffer, springier tendons, not from adding bulk. So it won't slow you down.
During a marathon block, the goal changes. You're not chasing gym PBs. You're keeping the strength and muscle you've worked for while running takes priority. The good news is that strength holds on far less work than it took to build. One session a week with a single hard set per exercise maintained strength for up to 32 weeks, as long as the weight stayed heavy (Spiering et al., 2021).
What that looked like for me:
Three gym sessions a week, capped at 90 minutes
Squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press for 5 to 7 reps, two or three working sets, one or two reps left in the tank
Chest, back, shoulders and arms kept close to normal, because running barely trains your upper body and that's where muscle gets lost
Easy runs stacked straight after a gym session, which gives the legs a full extra day of recovery
The single leg work helped. But it was the heavy compounds that kept my legs feeling strong deep into long runs.
The full guide has the complete exercise list, from calf raises to Pallof presses, with why each one is there.
Get the full Strong Runner's Blueprint
That's the foundation. The full guide is 14 pages and covers the rest of the block:
The long run: the 10 percent rule from a 5,200 runner study, when to peak, and why more than one 30km+ run helps if you have the time
Fuelling: protein, calories, carb loading and race day carbs per hour, with the numbers
The taper: what a meta analysis of the research says to cut and what to keep
When it goes wrong: my Bad Day Protocol and Minimum Viable Routine, applied to running
A weekly template and checklist you can print and stick on the fridge
Further reading: every study behind it, linked
Tap the button below, pop in your name and email, and it'll land in your inbox.
Want it built around you?
The blueprint is the framework. Coaching is where it gets fitted to your body, your schedule and your life: your paces, your gym sessions and your fuelling, adjusted every week based on how you're responding. And someone in your corner when a niggle shows up ten days out.
I coach people who want to get leaner, stronger and fitter without giving up the life they love. Whether that's your first marathon, your fastest one, or the best shape of your life alongside the running.
Apply for coaching here, or DM me START on Instagram @andrewcainept.
Andy.
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