Complete The Marathon By Running As The Exclusive Elite

Today most of us are busy people with a lot of demanding tasks to do. We have to schedule our days, prioritize and manage our resources in the best way to meet the challenges through days and weeks. We want to get the most out of our time and effort by choosing the right strategies to achieve what we want. To complete the Marathon by running as the exclusive elite and when it comes to running in general, we want to follow the best strategy and program that matches our running level from the start.

Make an Evaluation of Your current Running Opportunities

complete the marathon by running as the exclusive elite Opportunities

It doesn’t mean that from next Monday, you have to run several long runs every week for many weeks towards a marathon race goal in the future. One of the great benefits of being long distance runner is, that the training varies a lot and it’s fun to run and play with all the elements in running, to attain the endurance needed for reaching the finish line in the race. How will you start doing that?

A good idea is to ask yourself questions about your current running situation Particularly your health like:

  • Do you already have good diet habits, that work for you, giving you a proper weight?
  • Do you already have a kind of training program, that gives you a benefit in the marathon training start-up?

By keep asking and answering questions like these, you will uncover the current opportunities to start up a marathon training program that matches your current running level.

Learn Long Distance Running as the Exclusive Elite

 complete the marathon by running as the exclusive Woman with sports glasses

Running as elite runner means, you have to get the most out of the efforts by maximizing your resources. Every aspect of improvement is utilized such as optimization of training days, nutrition, races through the season, and sleep habits. If you don’t do that, you cannot be in the game as an elite runner. So, let’s say we look at a person who has been an elite runner for several years. Then we know he has worked on optimizing his running skills, training programs, sleeping patterns and so on.

By modeling his approach to training like I did years ago, you have certainty that it works and with a few personal adjustments, you suddenly have your own Frame/plan and running program that meets your demands and needs to run a marathon. And remember, marathon training should be a tool to meet the demands you make on yourself.

The best marathon runners in the world are running 160 – 300 km per week or more if they want to recover even faster. It seems like an overwhelming amount of training for a beginner/intermediate runner with a lot of other things to do in daily life, and of course, it’s too much.

But you can settle for much less training and still achieve very good results on the marathon distance. It just requires that you understand, how to put together a good marathon program, so it works optimally and matches your running level. You can do that by modeling the elite runner’s brilliant tricks and principles – translated to the life of an ordinary runner.

Variation in the Running Training Gives the Best Effect

 complete the marathon by running as the exclusive Men running on sand

Let’s take a look at the elite runner’s training methods. It’s their methods, which made the basis on how you should train because as mentioned they have already optimized their resources.

As beginner/intermediate runner, you have to vary your training in intensity and length. If you run shorter distances with higher intensity like hill training, intervals or tempo run, combined with the long easy runs – LSD, you will load the body differently on each training session. It means you become more resilient, better capable to train more by running more kilometers without getting an injury or risking overloading the body.

At the same time, the different training sessions and running speeds also train different energy systems and running mechanisms in your body, so you end up being a complete runner, who can keep up a relatively high pace through a long distance like a marathon race.

Create Running Programs That Fits Your Weekdays

complete the marathon by running as the exclusive Marathon program

When you translate the elite runners’ programs to your own life, the most effective time-saving factor for most runners is to cut off some of the many kilometers they run every week, so you can create a program that fits into your everyday life.

So, you should preserve the varied and intensive training, but drop many of the easy/moderate LSD runs, as the elite runners use to supplement their intensive training. You can easily just let 25-30% of your training be as long easy LSD runs, while the rest of the time, you work more purposefully with various intensive training sessions that increase your overall shape.

You do not have to worry about whether you get running enough kilometers. Many laboratory experiments have shown that intensive training sessions give much more effect per minute than the long slow runs, also when it comes to endurance.

Many intermediate/experienced runners, therefore, make a mistake, when they start training the long distances by simply adding more and more kilometers to their normal LSD runs at easy/moderate pace over time. It’s a training form that for most people, will end up taking too long about the benefit as effect per minute.

Run The Marathon as the World’s Elite

complete the marathon by running as the exclusive elite real elite runners

Research has shown that when you run more than 160 km per week, the curve will fade out when it’s about improvements in the effectiveness of running.

The reason that some of the elite runners are running 300 km/week or more is probably that for them, less than 1 % improvement, or even lesser, can mean the difference between a victory in one of the big running events and a lot of the positive benefits as victory prize money, bonuses, commercial value, ranking on the world ranking list, etc. is the reward, and a secondary placement that maybe only rewards the participant for showing up on the start line. The difference is enormous at this highest level.

Besides the small improvement by running more than 160 km/week is the recovery factor. Running more recovery runs means, that you recover faster, can participate in more races, get better placements and hereby make more money and keep/increase the ranking on the world ranking list. The third factor is an increased running economy. The more you practice running the less energy, you will use to move forward.

Final Thoughts

It’s always a good idea to model the best in any field including running. It cuts off the learning curve significantly. Knowing that you follow proven methods also creates more certainty and passion when you start up and complete a marathon running project.

So, if you are interested in running the marathon, I hope you like this review and if you have any questions about the topic or want to leave your own Personal review, please leave a comment below.

How long does it take for an elite to run a marathon?

Besides a lot of training to run 42,195 kilometers, it takes 2 hours for the absolute marathon elite to complete a marathon. In Berlin Marathon 2022 Eliud Kipchoge ran 2.01.09 in a new world record time. By comparison, Regular runners will finish a marathon in four and a half hours on average.
Share this Posts with your friends

4 thoughts on “Complete The Marathon By Running As The Exclusive Elite”

  1. I’m building up to the 100km per week but not there yet. I have a pretty targetted nutrition plan but not sure if I need to step up to including supplements. I’ve always been a bit wary but feel I may not be getting the nutrition I need at this stage of training. Have you looked into this side of things at all?

    Reply
    • Hi Emma Viney

      Thank you for the comment.

      I have written some articles about nutrition too. It’s about Carbohydrate and how to utilize it,

      when you are long distance runner. You can try this  

      Runners Diet

      Be Well

      Reply
  2. Ah, this is such a wonderful post for runners. I have not tried a marathon before but it is a challenge that I am looking to take and your post really puts it in a very good perspective for me so I am already looking to give it a try. I am going to run this exclusive elite you shared here for sure and see where I hi from there.

    Reply

Leave a Comment