You have signed up for a fall marathon. Your training is underway. You have a good aerobic base but as you ramp up your mileage, you are not entirely sure how to maintain your motivation and focus. Project Purple has you covered! In part two of our marathon training series, Coach Jane shares her tips for avoiding the marathon training wall!

We all know that training for a marathon is hard work – physically and mentally. But while the first month of training is often driven by newborn motivation and fresh legs, the next phases of training can be a grind on the body and the mind. As mileage increases, long runs get longer, legs feel heavier and the weather gets hotter, it can leave you feeling tired, labored and less motivated. Here are Project Purple’s Coach Jane’s marathon buildup strategies to help push through the proverbial ‘training wall’.

• Prioritize Your Training

• In other words, understand which components of your training program are the most important and which are the least important to reach your goals. I like to create a marathon training ‘pyramid’ where the most critical part of training is at the top and the least important are at the base of the pyramid. If you feel extremely fatigued or like an injury is coming on, focus on the top of the pyramid and reduce time spent on the base. Not only will this help you stay healthy, it will help you sustain motivation and energy levels knowing there are always places you can cut back if necessary. See below for an example of my marathon training pyramid.

Shake Things Up

• You are more likely to get into a rut if your training is monotonous: going through the same routine, in the same place, with the same people, day in and day out. This can usurp your motivation and impede your progress. If you find yourself (literally) running down this path, shake things up: map out different running routes; run with different people; organize ‘destination runs’ with your running group that land you at a great brunch spot or at a bar at the end of your long or easy weekday runs so that you have something to look forward to. In addition, make sure you don’t do all of your runs at the same pace; once a week, do tempo runs or hill repeats instead of an easy run. Another way to add variety to your training is to alternate your cross-training activities. Instead of strength training solo do a yoga class, or in lieu of an elliptical workout do a spin class. You will lose the boredom and gain fitness in one punch!

Seek Inspiration off the Roads

Just because you are training for a marathon doesn’t mean all you can do to prepare is run! Get inspired by reading a good running book (like Born to Run), or watching a running We all know that training for a marathon is hard work – physically and mentally. But while the first month of training is often driven by newborn motivation and fresh legs, the next phases of training can be a grind on the body and the mind. As mileage increases, long runs get longer, legs feel heavier and the weather gets hotter, it can leave you feeling tired, labored and less motivated. Here are my marathon buildup strategies to help push through the proverbial ‘training wall’:

Treat Yourself

•  Nothing is worse than working your butt off (literally) with no rewards until race day. Treating yourself to a weekly massage, pedicure, or epsom salt bath will keep you motivated and help stave off injuries. Enjoy a glass of your favorite bubbly or indulge in your favorite dessert after your long run. Whatever your treat-of-choice is, it is important that you don’t feel deprived while you are training for a marathon, or your gusto will a go-go!

• Focus on how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go!

There will undoubtedly be a point when you finish a hard long run and think “How am I ever going to be able to run 8 more miles?!” Runners are the kind of type A personalities that will focus on how far they are from their goal rather than how far they’ve come. Make a concerted effort to counter every thought of fear or negativity with something positive that you have accomplished. Maybe you ran slower on a given day, but it was the longest you’ve ever run! Maybe you didn’t run as far as last week, but you finally got your fueling routine down. Whatever it is, there are surely positive aspects of your weekly training that you can highlight. Consciously listing the steps you’ve made toward your goal will give you increased motivation and make you more confident on race day.

 

Coach Jane’s Training Pyramid

For Part One of Jane’s marathon training tips, follow this link:

http://www.run4projectpurple.org/marathon-training-phase-one-tips/