What should a typical week of marathon training look like?

No marathon training week is complete without your long run. The length of this will increase gradually, often around 1 mile only per week over a typical 16-week programme. The guideline for this run is to run it 45-60 seconds per mile slower than your target pace for the marathon and is probably the most popular method of doing these runs. Personally, I like to run these a little faster than that, either by adding in some faster miles in the middle of the run, progressing pace throughout the run, or maintaining a pace around 30 seconds slower than marathon pace.

It’s good practice to keep some faster running in your weekly plan. You could perform some longer intervals at a pace slightly faster than target pace, close to your half marathon pace. Another popular and productive alternative is to do a tempo run which is technically meant to be performed at close to 10k pace lasting 20-60 minutes. This sounds like a longer run considering the pace, especially for those running under 40 minutes for 10k, but this will be close to your 10-mile race pace, only for a shorter time. You can use tempo runs weekly, but I’d recommend slowing down or skipping your interval work unless you’re an experienced marathoner.

These do exactly what the names suggest. By running slow on the day after your long run or even a particularly arduous tempo or interval session, you speed up the healing process. These runs, although performed at a very low intensity around 60-90 seconds/mile slower than marathon pace, are a great way to add extra time on your feet and elevation of heart rate to build fitness and mental strength.

Whilst running is the most vital part of your plan, if you miss strength work and drills, you’ll be missing out on hitting your fastest times. If running a marathon faster isn’t the target for you that’s absolutely fine, but I’d still advise strengthening exercise in order to reduce your risk of injury and in the long term, decrease the stress that running puts on your body in order to make it easier and even more enjoyable.