2 marathons in a weekend

by Stephen
(UK)

2 marathons in a weekend :

"Marius,

The 2012 Jungfrau marathon is the 20th anniversary of the event, as well as being the World championships Long Distance Mountain Running Challenge. As a special event they are running a double category where you run the course on both the Saturday and Sunday.

I fully appreciate your thinking that long runs and run/walks are about time on your feet rather than fatiguing yourself do I need to consider repeating long runs on back to back days to simulate the inevitable fatigue on day 2?

Whilst I plan to run both relatively conservatively what recommendations can you give for adjusting the training plan?

Thanks"

Answer: Hi Stephen and thanks for your question.

In this situation, I would definately do some training beforehand to deal with the back to back marathons like that.

I would do three rounds (no more !) 10, 20 and 30 days respectively before the marathon where you do two days back to back with long easy running (about 3 hours in duration and the last 20-30 minutes of the FIRST day a little bit faster, going into upper Zone 2, lower zone 3)

If you do this, you have to take away one of the hard sessions each of those weeks to avoid over-training.

The key to fast adaption is usually 2-3 rounds of exposure like this - no more, and you get 90 % of the effect with very little disturbance into the total training system (same goes for example with hill work preparing for a hilly marathon or asphalt/concrete training if you are not used to running on a hard surface. About 3 times is ideal if you want to do a "minimum" of it, while still keeping the schedule)

I wish you all the best,

kind regards,
Marius