How to take the next step in your marathon training
A primer for aspiring intermediate marathon runners (before your third or fourth marathon)
Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash
Taking a step up from amateur running to intermediate can be confusing. If you search online for what this entails, you’ll be bombarded with information.
Some websites suggest ever-more-complicated training plans, full of different training styles at prescribed distances on specified days. A 2 mile tempo run on Monday. Rest day on Tuesday. A five mile progression run on Wednesday – and so on.
Here at Kaizen, we’d argue that’s all a bit much. That thinking about your training this way is over complicating things.
That it’s a lot of pointless noise – sound and fury.
And in this post we’re going to discuss the ‘whys’, and an alternative approach that we’re very excited about.
The very nature of The Internet makes training look more complicated than it needs to be
We all know this on some level, but the vast majority of The Internet – you might argue this post included, but we’d protest! – isn’t necessarily full of useful information, but information primarily designed to draw our eyes to one website or another all in the name of some kind of commerce.
So how does this affect running?
You as an aspiring intermediate runner have already come a long way, having challenged your body and your mindset through a significant number of running hours.
If taking the next step is simple then there’s not much to sell you. But that’s not going to stop people trying.
Taking the step up
Photo by Oktay Yildiz on Unsplash
As we mentioned at the beginning, in order to step up your training, plenty of apps and sites are going to suggest adapting your training with various different styles of run. These could be:
Long Runs: to build endurance and prepare the body for the extended duration of a marathon or other distance race.
Interval Runs: Runs that alternate between short, fast-paced running and slower, recovery jogging. They help improve speed, cardiovascular fitness, and the body's ability to handle different paces.
Tempo Runs: steady, hard runs performed slightly below race pace. Enhances lactate threshold, promoting the ability to sustain a faster pace for a more extended period.
Hill Runs: Hill runs involve running uphill for a specific distance or time, followed by recovery periods to build strength, power, and endurance, particularly targeting the muscles used during uphill sections of races.
Recovery Runs: low-intensity, short-distance runs usually following a more challenging workout to reduce muscle soreness, promote blood flow, and enhance overall recovery.
Progression Runs: runs gradually increasing in pace, finishing at a faster, more challenging velocity to improve improve stamina, pacing strategies, and the ability to finish strong in races.
Cross-Training: engaging in alternative forms of exercise, such as cycling, swimming, or strength training, to complement running. Helps prevent overuse injuries, enhances overall fitness, and provides variety.
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
As we also already said, intermediate training plans online and in running magazines are needlessly over-complicated. They look like a strange sci-fi alchemy of mathematics and PE with their alternating training styles and micro-managed, prescribed distances and rest days.
But – yes – these training plans are by their very nature generic. Each of us responds to training and recovery in different ways. We have different body types, we eat and sleep differently, and we have different abilities.
So why do these these training plans exist?
These plans are one-size-fits-all, lighter versions of the routines of professional, elite runners. But these are runners who have a backup team of sports scientists and personal trainers analysing everything. As a consequence their daily training is constantly tweaked and adapted and focussed around how their specific bodies are reacting to their specific training data.
No professional follows the kinds of prescriptive plans that can be found online. Professional training is focussed, sure, but adaptive, constantly shifting.
And all that effort is done in the name of very small gains here and there, in shaving off seconds from their times. Because that’s what professional athletes have to do.
All this is fine if you’re getting paid to run and improve, but if you have a day job, or a family, or any other kind of responsibility then the truth is that prescriptive training plans are as impractical as they are kind of useless. And the gains they might generate are so miniscule compared to the hassle they create in your life as you incorporate them into your routine.
Again, these online plans are yet more marketing noise: attention-grabbing ways of projecting knowledge and authority.
But there is another way.
A simpler alternative to complicated running plans
Kaizen is a team formed around a different training approach to other brands.
Our original tagline was ‘Simply Run’.
Because running doesn’t have to be complicated – we believe this deeply.
We’re a simpler, calmer running headspace.
The Kaizen app is built around a more realistic kind of running training that we believe more accurately fits in with the lives of real people – from those starting out doing their first marathon to aspiring intermediate runners – and everyone else already beyond that stage.
But that’s not to mean that we’re inferior in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact. Aside from Josh Sambrook, developer of the Kaizen algorithm, our team is made up of runners who used the Kaizen system before it was a fully-fledged app, fell in love with the system, and then came on board the company.
We’re all converts to the Kaizen way. We appreciate how Kaizen simplified our running training, and – more to the point – we love the gains we made along the way.
The app works like this:
Kaizen presents you with a weekly distance target. This target comes from an algorithm that analyses your training data – your speed, your distances, and how your body is responding to your training – and factors in your progress in relation to your race aims (i.e. your marathon target time). Hit that training load and you’ll see the progress you’re aiming for.
You can incorporate any of the training styles in the list above in any variety or non-variety that you like. If you enjoy one style more than another try it for as many days as you want. The app will keep track of your progress for you. As a new week begins your new training target will reflect your progress and effort.
Put another way, Kaizen takes the place of the sports scientist/personal trainer used by those elite athletes.
The app takes responsibility for analysing your data for you, for interpreting that data, and for setting distance targets that adapt each week depending on your progress.
And of course, it’s a given that you need to listen to your body. Don’t do two 17k runs on consecutive days before you feel ready, and remember that no blog post on any site on the planet is going to tell you when you actually need a rest day at some undetermined point in the future.
That kind of thing might look good, but it makes no sense.
So – there are a number of advantages of non-prescriptive training plans:
Flexibility: The plan adapts to your lifestyle. Missing a day here and there doesn’t make you want to reach for a calculator in an effort to work out how to get back on track with your plan (like you might have to do with a prescriptive plan).
Simplicity: Just run the target distance over the week however you see fit.
Clarity: If you can’t manage the target training load, you’ll know you need to adjust your ambition accordingly.
Realism: Free yourself from over-complicated prescriptive plans.
Following a non-prescriptive training plan is the enjoyable way to progress.
What’s more, Kaizen’s powerful algorithm also produces an incredibly accurate race prediction, so by race day, you’ll have the confidence that you know exactly what you’re capable of in the race. You’ll be able to pace yourself correctly.
Final word
Kaizen’s ethos is to avoid over-complicating running with showy nothingness. We’ve disparaged more complicated training plans and promoted our own non-prescriptive style not as a marketing push, but because we’re a group of runners excited about what we have to offer the running world.
In a way, we’re pioneers, setting out stall on our own, promoting a different way of running.
We’d love to welcome you into the Kaizen fold and wholeheartedly promote the idea of you gaining confidence and clarity in your training by trying out the app for free for a month.
Do you have any other tips for keeping motivated? If so, chat to us here on our Discord and Strava.
