You’ve decided to run a marathon. So now what? Top running coaches have helped develop programs that will work for runners of any level. Here’s a selection – plus some of your recommendations
1. Olympian Jeff Galloway coaches runners to help stay injury-free with his unique run-walk method. This is ideal for beginners, as it puts less stress on the body, but also good for more experienced runners who tend to develop injuries.
2. Greg McMillan, a marathoner and distance coach, helps time-oriented runners achieve race goals. He has good advice on running techniques – such as running the second half of your long run faster than the first, etc – but you need to subscribe to get the detailed race advice.
3. Veteran runner Hal Higdon has lots of detailed advice for runners of all abilities, ranging from novice to advanced, as well as training for seniors.
4. The Boston Marathon has very good training advice; this material could be good if you’re doing a main piece to accompany different marathon training programmes…
At our Facebook and Twitter accounts, we asked you what you were using. Hal Higdon proved very popular with a lot of people, but there were alterantives.
Kealan O’Connor said: “It’s a bit of a minefield, the main thing is to keep running! I came across this today, a bit of reassurance if your under pressure for time.”
Brendan O’Carroll said: “Using the sub 4hour plan from run republic to train for my first.”
Brendan Townsend: “Just started training for my first marathon and am using the FIRST training plan. More here”
Gareth McQuillan backed that up: “I “loosely” followed the FIRST programme for a PB of 3h12 in May. The book is called “Run less, run faster” published by Runners World (and all the details are available on their website)”
