It’s been about a full month now since I started running in a new pair of shoes. My Nike zooms are light and fast but I notice my feet aren’t used to them yet. They have less cushioning and with my lately adapted mid-foot/ fore-foot landing stride my feet hurt a little. I’ve never had any pain or unusual sensations on the bottom of my feet so this is a new experience. With new running shoes it is common to get blisters here and there because of the difference in shape. I can complete my long runs pain free but some unfamiliar sensations come later on in the day, at this moment nothing to get too worried about I guess.

Marathon training schedules can vary greatly depending on the runner’s personal goals, level of experienced and things like available time to spend on training runs. Most common schedules for the average recreational marathon runner consist of a long run on Sunday and a couple of easier runs during the week with a tempo run or an interval run in the middle of the week. For those who work a busy job with commuting and a family might have little time during the week and would put a tempo run on Saturday to make the long run on Sunday a little more challenging. For those recreational marathon runners with a bit more free time on their hands could do two hard runs back to back on Tuesday and Wednesday and recover or rest on Thursday and Friday to do only a long run on Sunday. Whatever training schedule you choose the most important thing to do is not to deviate from your planned intensity and distance for each day. Overtraining often comes from going too fast on easy days.

For many marathon runners a speed training workout is among the most exhausting things to do during a week of training. So thinking through your speed training program is time well spend. There are a variety of speed training types to choose from but it is difficult or maybe time consuming to find a workout which works best for you. A good speed workout will enable you to eventually be able to run faster for a long time such as during your actual marathon race. If your current speed training only allows you to run faster during succeeding speed workouts and not during and extended period such as a long run or your marathon race.

Runners speed training

Psychological training for the marathon

As a marathoner we put in a huge amounts of miles or (kilometers depending on where you are running) every week. These hundreds or even thousands of miles are needed to be able to register your best finishing time on the clock. But there are days when the going gets tough and it is hard to put one foot in front of the other. For most of us, giving up is not found in our dictionary, so we have to huddle on to finish the day’s mileage. What we need is some help from our thoughts to make it to where we want to go. Mental strength and a psychological training is needed to finish hard runs and also full marathon races. Some tricks and clever ways to guide our thoughts would help tremendously with being able to finish a tough run or any other endurance race.

Runners psychological training

As recreational runners turn into marathon runners, their new goal needs to be fitted with additional strength training to build a body that can run the whole 26.2 miles. As we already suggested here with the title, is that any runner considering to run a full marathon should definitely look into the area of supplemental strength training to improve running form and running efficiency. Another benefit of strength training is that the muscles around the joints become stronger preventing  unwanted injuries as weekly mileage increases.

Our strength training page provides two strength training exercises for runners and there are (at the moment) six more strength training drills on a separate page. Follow this link here of the one at the bottom of the strength training page.

Worked on updating the nutrition page with more useful and accurate information. Surely there is room for more information and tips about nutrition but we are working on perfecting a page on energy and energy conversion to ATP during endurance runs such as those continuing for more than an hour. The runners nutrition page now talks about the four main types of nutrition for runners, which are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and water. As the runners level of training rises and weekly averages reach to 40K to 50K (24 to 30 miles) some more thought needs to go into a good balanced intake of nutrients.

In future updates to this page we hope to include more details on vitamins and minerals for runners as they can also play a critical role in the training and race performances if levels are insufficient.