To run a marathon, you need a high level of dedication and hard work, which can be challenging, especially for beginners who do not have any fitness routine. If you spend all your time sitting, engaging in Preakness stakes odds, playing casino games, or video games, deciding to run a marathon wouldn’t be easy.
You need to prepare, take time to practice, and increase your fitness training. You can just jump to run a marathon because it would mean stretching yourself to a level your body is not familiar with, and as a result, you can break down. Therefore, before you decide to run a marathon, you need to consider some preparation tips to put your body in the best possible shape.
Start Small
When you want to go on a marathon, you need to start with a few short races around the block. You can even do half marathons to get a feel in your body. As a result, you will start pushing your body to do the work it needs whenever you want to run the marathon. As you continue, you will keep building strength and endurance.
Ensure that you start your training early to build enough mileage before the marathon. It is recommended that you do this a year before the marathon race. As a result, you will have strong enough muscles to run a marathon. The idea is that you don’t go in too fast or too soon to avoid injuring yourself.
Build a Primary Mileage
As you’re starting small, you need to ensure that you build base mileage. You can start with less than a mile and go up from there. Take it one day at a time so that you’re not overworking your body and muscles. It is essential that you account for a chance to run every week and get in your weekly mileage to get used to long runs.
As you get closer to the marathon, your goal should be to increase your mileage by 10% each week. Ensure that you try running between three to five times a week, depending on the marathon length. Don’t forget to start as early as possible to give yourself the time to build the mileage up.
Practice With Frequent Long Runs
The next phase is to go with frequent long runs and build momentum. As you start small, you should increase your mileage consistently. You should do this once every week by increasing your mileage by one or two as you continue to practice. You need to keep doing this until you hit the marathon mileage. A standard marathon is 26 miles.
Therefore, if you want to start with 1 mile, you need to make room for 26 weeks to grow the momentum. Or you can make it two per week to cut it to 13 weeks, giving you enough time to build on other areas of your marathon practice. You should consider running slower as it bulbs confidence and allows your body to adjust to farther distances, and let you burn fat for fuel.
Sprint
You can also try sprinting or HIIT workouts to improve your stride. When you make short sprints, it will help you improve your acceleration techniques. As a result, you can have the burst of energy you need to win a race. And if you are planning to finish the marathon, you might want to build your strides.
Marathon runners can benefit from sprinting while they train as long strides as running most times means that you can run faster. Therefore, there is a chance that you’ll not only finish the race but you can also finish on the podium, although this shouldn’t be the goal since this is your first marathon race.
Build a Muscle Recovery Routine
As you continue to train for the marathon, you should understand that your body needs rest and recovery. As a result, you should add this into your training, giving your muscles enough time to repair. Once you do this, you will prevent injury and fatigue. You can employ the use of muscle recovery tools to aid faster recovery.
There are different tools to use. If you’re finding the best one for you, you can take a trip to see the different options available to know which one fits your pocket. You can always go for the perfect recovery tools if you have enough money to splurge. Aside from that, a good eight hours of sleep is enough to give you the needed rest.
Final Note
Preparing for a marathon can be a lot of work, and it requires a high level of dedication. Therefore, if you want to do this, you need to have all the necessary tools to ensure that you reach the level you need and recover as early as possible.
