Training Guides
The marathon is 42.195 kilometres of the most demanding, rewarding and humbling running you'll ever do. It requires more preparation than any other common race distance — and done right, it's one of the most meaningful things you'll ever accomplish. This guide covers everything from your first long run to the finish line.
The standard recommendation is to have a solid base of at least 6 months of regular running before beginning marathon training. Ideally you can run 40–50 minutes comfortably and cover 25–30km per week consistently before you start your plan. If you're below this, spend 6–8 weeks building your base first — you'll get to the start line healthier and have a much better race.
If you've completed a half marathon, you're well placed to begin a 16–20 week marathon build. The jump from half to full is significant — roughly doubling your longest training run and adding 40–60% more weekly volume at peak — but it's entirely achievable with patient, consistent training.
The most important rule in marathon training: Consistency over weeks and months beats any single hard session. Missing one run is fine. Missing weeks because you pushed too hard and got injured is not. When in doubt, do less.
Marathon finish time goals are deeply personal, but these benchmarks are widely referenced in the running community:
Marathon training is built around four core elements that work together across the week. Each serves a distinct physiological purpose — removing any one of them will compromise your race result.
This is the cornerstone of marathon training and the most important session of your week, every week. Your long run builds the aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, and mental resilience to sustain 42km of running. It should be run at a genuinely easy, conversational pace — typically 60–90 seconds per km slower than your goal marathon pace.
Your long run will build from around 16km in the early weeks to a peak of 32–35km about 3 weeks before race day. Some plans cap at 29–30km — this is sufficient for most runners. You don't need to run the full 42.2km in training; the taper, race conditions, and adrenaline will carry you the rest of the way.
The most common mistake in marathon training: Running the long run too fast. If you can't hold a full conversation throughout your long run, you're going too hard. Slow down. The easy pace is doing the work — trust it.
The majority of your weekly running — 2 to 3 runs — should be genuinely easy. These runs build aerobic capacity while allowing recovery from your harder sessions. Most runners run their easy days 30–60 seconds per km too fast, which accumulates fatigue and increases injury risk. If you're unsure, you're probably going too hard.
Once you're 6–8 weeks into training, including sections of your medium-long runs at your goal marathon pace teaches your body and mind what that effort feels like. A typical session might be a 16km run with the middle 10km at marathon pace. This is harder than easy but much more controlled than tempo — it should feel sustainable, not laboured.
A weekly tempo of 25–40 minutes at comfortably hard effort improves your lactate threshold — the pace you can sustain without accumulating fatigue rapidly. For marathon runners, this is typically 30–45 seconds per km faster than marathon pace. One tempo session per week is enough; two is too much for most non-elite runners.
| Run Type | Effort | vs Marathon Pace | Example (5:30/km goal) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Conversational | +60–90 sec/km | 6:30–7:00/km |
| Marathon Pace | Controlled, sustainable | Goal pace | 5:30/km |
| Tempo | Comfortably hard | −30 to −45 sec/km | 4:45–5:00/km |
| Long Run | Easy + relaxed | +75–100 sec/km | 6:45–7:10/km |
Here's how a typical 16-week marathon plan progresses for an intermediate runner (sub-4 hour goal) running 4–5 days per week. The pattern is three weeks of building followed by one recovery week — a structure that drives adaptation while preventing overtraining.
The taper is the 2–3 week reduction in mileage before race day. It's the most psychologically difficult part of marathon training for most runners — you feel sluggish, doubt your fitness, get phantom aches, and desperately want to do more. This phenomenon even has a name: taper madness.
Do not give in to it. The taper allows your body to fully absorb 14–17 weeks of hard training. Muscle glycogen stores top up, minor inflammation resolves, and your legs come back to life on race morning. Runners who respect the taper almost always have better races than those who cram in extra kilometres.
Keep the same number of runs during the taper but cut the distance of each. Maintain a small amount of pace work (one short tempo session in week 15) to keep your legs sharp without adding fatigue.
The marathon is the only common race distance where mid-race nutrition is not optional — it's a requirement. Your glycogen stores provide approximately 90 minutes of fuel at marathon effort. Every runner will need to take on carbohydrates during the race. Runners who don't plan this end up walking the final 10km.
Never try anything new on race day. The gels, sports drink, or food you use in the race must be tested in long training runs first. A gel that causes stomach cramps at km 28 when you have 14km left is a race-ending problem. Practise your nutrition strategy in every long run from week 8 onwards.
The wall — also called "hitting the wall" or "bonking" — is the sudden and severe fatigue that hits many marathon runners around the 30–35km mark. It's caused by glycogen depletion combined with accumulated muscular fatigue. When it happens it feels like someone turned the power off. Your pace drops dramatically and every kilometre feels enormous.
The three causes of hitting the wall are: starting too fast, insufficient fuelling, and undertrained long runs. Address all three and you'll run clean through to the finish. Starting conservatively (first half at or slightly slower than goal pace), fuelling every 40–45 minutes from km 10, and completing your long run training to peak gives you the best chance of avoiding it entirely.
The single most important tactical decision in a marathon is pace management in the first 10km. The start of a marathon feels easy — good weather, fresh legs, crowd energy, adrenaline. Every one of these things will pull you into running faster than planned. Every 10 seconds per km too fast in the first half costs you 20–30 seconds per km in the final 10km.
The optimal strategy for most runners is a slight negative split — running the second half marginally faster than the first. Aim to run the first 10km at goal pace or 5 seconds per km slower, hold steady through km 10–30, then give everything you have in the final 12km if the legs are there.
The 30km rule: Don't make any positive decisions about your race until you've passed 30km. If you're feeling great at 25km, stay at pace. The race doesn't truly begin until 30km — everything before that is setup.
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⚡ Build My Free Marathon PlanMost runners need 16–20 weeks of structured training. Beginners with a base of 25–30km per week should allow 20 weeks. Experienced runners who already train consistently can be ready in 16 weeks. Never attempt to prepare for a marathon in less than 14 weeks — the injury risk is high and the experience is rarely enjoyable.
Most plans peak the long run between 29km and 35km, run 2–3 weeks before race day. The debate over 29km vs 35km has been going for decades — the honest answer is that both work. What matters more is the consistency of your long runs across the full training block than the exact peak distance of any single run.
Finishing your first marathon is the goal — time is secondary. That said, a common first-timer target is sub-5 hours (7:06/km), which is very achievable with a 16–20 week training plan. Sub-4:30 (6:23/km) is a solid intermediate first-timer goal for runners with a strong half marathon base.
Four days per week is the minimum for an effective marathon plan. Five days is better and will support faster finishing times. Six or seven days per week is possible but requires very disciplined pacing of easy days and increases injury risk significantly for runners who haven't built up to that volume gradually.
A carbohydrate-rich meal you've eaten before long training runs — pasta, rice, or potatoes with a light protein source. Avoid high-fibre vegetables, anything particularly fatty, and anything new. Eat earlier than usual (6–7pm) to give your stomach time to settle before an early race start. Drink plenty of water but don't overdo it the night before.
Yes, though most coaches recommend at least one half marathon race experience before your first marathon, even if just as a training run. Racing a half gives you practice with race-day logistics — pinning a bib, starting in a crowd, taking on drinks at stations, and managing race-day nerves — all without the full commitment of 42km.