How to run 4.30 marathon

by La Runner - answered by Marius

How to can you improve your marathon time from 6 hours down to a 4.30 marathon ?

This is a question I got from one of the readers;

"Last year I ran the LA Marathon and I finished 6 hours,I want to finish 4hours and 30 mins.I train by myself.what can I do to improve my time and I would like some tips on a good training progam and I will train hard."

If you plan to run the LA marathon again (which is in March), what I would do is to split the training period before LA into 4 parts to get down to 4.30 hours. Of equal number of weeks.

Training part 1 : Try to get your muscles prepared for the work. Switch between walking and running in almost all workouts.

The key is to get away from just "going out for a run" This is not the way to improve your marathon time down to 4.30! You need to a) get your muscles used to going harder for longer periods preparing them for interval work 2)kick start your metabolism for weight decrease going into the second part.

Example - 3 min run, 1.30 walk,4 min run,2 min walk etc. totalling 30-45 minutes. For all runs, no 30 minutes continous runs anymore.. Then every second week, do one, very easy continous run of 1.30 hrs.

Second part : Split the runs into 3 different types : between the walk-runs which now can be up to 1 hour and should be 1/3 of the workouts, 1/3 20-35 minutes continous runs 1/3 pure interval trainings of faster pace (your 5k pace, total distance 5-6 miles, for example 6x1 mile)
Same as before with 1.30 long run about every other week.

Third part to run 4.30 marathon : add a long run of 1.30-2 hours every week, very easy. No more walk-run workouts and make the interval trainings at half marathon pace (about 6-8 miles total distance, split into intervals)

Fourth part : Place 3 longer runs in there of 2.30 to 3 hours very,very easy, even with some walking in there (last one 10 days before the race)- before tapering down doing only 60 % of total minutes "normally run" 1-2 weeks before and 30 % the week of the marathon.

Wish you all the best with your 4.30 marathon quest, and thanks for your question.

Best wishes,
Marius

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