Spring every year brings some of the biggest marathons in the UK including Boston (Lincolnshire), Manchester, Edinburgh and of course, the London Marathon, with the Paris marathon being another popular one around the same time. What if you want to do more than one? What should you consider?

 

Targets

Firstly you need to make a choice. You can do both, but the chances of running both to the best of your ability are slim. Depending on the order and difficulty of the courses, plus your overall goals, it would be best to take one as an “experience” with the other being your race. 

Let’s say you’ve never run London, but you’ve done Edinburgh and you’re doing both in one Spring. You might want to beat your previous Edinburgh time as a show of how far you’ve come, or you might want to run London hard as a more even gauge of marathon fitness with a better chance of running a personal best.

Often the earlier of the two is when you’ll run best, because you’ll be coming in straight from a marathon training block and taper.

 

What to do in the gap – racing first

After a hard marathon you’ll need a couple of easy training weeks to recover from the race and heavier training. 

This leaves you 2-4 weeks to prepare for your next marathon at an easier effort level. You’ll want to take a 1-2 week taper ahead of the race, with this being a week shorter than your usual taper since training will have been easier. My advice would be to keep mileage around the mid-range of what you did in the last marathon block (e.g. 35 miles if you ran between 30 and 40 miles per week across the block). Focus on adding a little bit of more intense speed training at half marathon pace over shorter distances like 1 mile, to maintain fitness. Keep your long runs to around 16-18 miles at most, enough to not lose what you’ve gained, but not so much that you’re tired.

 

What to do in the gap – racing second

Arguably the best idea would be to use your first “experience” marathon as part of your marathon block to avoid tapering twice in a short space of time. This allows you to take 7-10 days of lower training load after the first marathon (fewer miles, less intensity or both).

You’ll still want to factor in a 2-3 week taper ahead of your race marathon, leaving you with a narrow window of around 10 days to 3 weeks of marathon work. Lucky you did the experience marathon in rather than at the end of your training block hey?

Again, speed work in short bursts at half marathon pace wouldn’t be a bad idea, and you’ve done a long run having covered a marathon, so depending on how that felt you could stick with 16-18 miles, or go up to 20 if you feel good. Weigh up the minor benefit of extra fitness against your recovery rate and levels of fatigue.

When it comes to running the second marathon as your race, the priority is feeling fresh and recovering well beforehand.

 

Recover well

With such a short break between races, and whilst still trying to maintain fitness or even gain a little if you’re racing the second marathon, recovery is key.

Eating well, drinking and sleeping lots are absolutely essential. A sports massage and extra time with your foam roller or massage gun would also be a good idea to keep yourself in top shape and avoid injuries at this late stage.

 

Decide on your plan for racing and experiencing, then follow the tips above with good recovery.

 

Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk