Deciding to run a marathon is impressive. It takes courage to commit to even the concept of wanting to run 26.2 miles, but when you add to that all the training needed it becomes clear this is a big deal. So with this mind, setting yourself the goal of just completing the distance – irrespective of the time it takes – should not be sniffed at. Many runners do this, especially for their first marathon because you never know what could happen on race day. In contrast, other runners have times they would love to beat without being too precise, such as running sub 5 hours or sub 4 hours and so on. And a few others know exactly what time they would like to run.
Over the period of a 4 or 5 month training programme these goals may be revised up or down. If training is going well and you run a particularly good half-marathon in the build up this might encourage you to focus on a different time to reflect a greater than expected progress. It is easy to get carried aware here. Any endurance event is never a precise affair, there are plenty of external variables to affect your race no matter how thorough your planning and preparation.
It is important to reassess your goals and target times, but make sure they are appropriate and reflect a modification of your original ambitions rather a wholesale change of strategy.
In Britain we work more hours than anywhere else in Europe and working more means less time for training. Though time is scarce our running is precious to us, so it needs to be given the importance it deserves. We think nothing of filling our diaries with important work and social appointments. But why not do the same for your running sessions? If you find yourself struggling to keep to your programme by missing your sessions, then pop them into your diary, in just the same way as you would do with all your other meetings. Or leave post-it notes on your PC if that’s your thing. This could not only help you to schedule your weekly speed work or tempo run, but it might also help send a signal to colleagues that your running is important to you. It may not prevent you missing all of the sessions, sometimes life just gets in the way, but over time it could improve your commitment and ultimately your performance.
And if you travel a lot for work this need not get in the way of your training either. Make the best use of hotel gyms – the odd treadmill session certainly breaks up the monotony of the road. Or use it as a great way to explore different locations. Carrying around your kit may seem an inconvenience, but the benefit is worth it, and after a while it becomes a routine just like any other aspect of your training. Gore running has a particularly good travel kit to make things as simple as possible for you:
Online route planners make it easy to know how far you have run, not only for long, slow distance, but also for speed work. Measuring a stretch of road for running 400m or 800m repetitions has never been easier. But that said, there is really no substitute for doing speed work on a track.
You don’t find them on every corner, but they are more common than you think and because most are local authority run they don’t cost a lot to use. This great website lists all running tracks in the UK.