Marathon Training Secrets

You may remember at the beginning of last month our write up of the GoMakeItHappen charity event held at the Harpenden Halls. The night itself was all about kick starting the charity creating a platform to progress from. Now we've danced into the new year, we're now brainstorming other ideas to keep the charities momentum going.

One idea that caught all of our attention was to give the Great North Run a go this September. Out of the group that organised the charity event, none of us have ever run more than 5km at a time, so not only would it be for a great cause, it'd be a heck of a challenge as well! Realistically if we were to go ahead with it, training would need to start asap, especially when you think about all those extra Christmas pounds we'd need to work off! We'd have to get our names in the ballot fairly sharpish too.

With that in mind, we thought we'd need all the help we could get! So courtesy of Octobers issue of Outdoors Fitness Magazine, here's some marathon tips from Olympic Silver medalist Steve Cram!


Variety - "The big mistake people make is always to run at the same pace. Elite athletes inject real variety into their training. Mix long runs with slow recovery sessions, and put in quicker runs, interval sessions and hill work to develop overall fitness."

Cross-Training - "I've got war wounds from my years as a runner, so I use my mountain bike to avoid niggles that might turn into injuries. It doesn't stress my body but still provides me with a good cardio workout."

Nutrition - "People get too wound up about nutrition. Simply think of it like putting petrol into a car. You wouldn't put the wrong fuel in, nor go for a drive with the tank empty, so why do that when you want your body to perform?"

Planning - "In a good marathon, your first half should be very comfortable and your second half allow you to pick up the pace. Elite runners aim for negative splits, where you get faster during the race. A lot of people don't understand why they crashed in the second half of a marathon. They almost always went off too fast and didn't save enough for the second half."

Run Everywhere - "I travel a lot, and always pack running shoes, it's a great way to see a city. Running is a great stress reliever and even 20 minutes keeps that consistency in my training. It makes a massive difference for me."