It might be a marathon and not a sprint that you’re training for, BUT, that’s not technically true when it comes to the types of runs you should be doing if you’re trying to run a faster marathon time. Anna and Kate are here to take you through why speedwork matters for longer endurance running and, crucially, some examples of sessions you can incorporate into your training, no matter what your target finish time is.
SPEEDWORK SESSIONS
Hill Surges:
Choose a hilly loop, run harder up the hills and push off the top of each hill, running relaxed in between.
Structured Fartlek:
12-24 x 1 minute efforts with 30s jog in between.
Longer option: 3 sets of 5min, 4min, 3min, 2min, 1min with 1min recovery throughout
parkrun (15km) Session:
Run the course once before the event at marathon race pace. Then run the parkrun hard. Then run the course again at marathon pace.
Or run parkrun (or another 5k loop), then 10x40s hard hill efforts with jog down recovery, then another 5k at marathon pace
Track Sessions:
– 6 x 1mile at 10k pace with 90 seconds recovery between reps
– 8 x 1km at 10k pace with 60 seconds recovery between reps
– 2 x (2k repetitions at 10k pace and 4 x 500 metres @ 5k pace) 3 minutes recovery after the 2ks , 1 minute after the 500s and 3 minutes in between sets
– 2 miles @ threshold pace followed by 3 minutes recovery. Then do 2 x (8x200m reps with 30 seconds recovery between each rep). Aim for 3k pace with 3 min recovery between sets.
Ultimate Marathon Session:
1km @ Marathon pace
1km @ 10k pace
Start with 8k total distance and build up as far as potentially 20 or 21km
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