Cathal Dennehy: principles worth remembering before Marathon season
Runners Irish Life During Dublin The 2024 Marathon
THIS is the week it often begins. When many have had their fill of gluttony and set about turning this ship around. That language will finally be learned. That smartphone will be cast aside before 11pm each night. That marathon will finally be run.
For many, the journey to that finish line starts on New Year’s Eve – a night that always triggers a strange kind of nostalgia for the future, an awareness that we’re slowly running out of time to do the things we always wanted: like running 26.2 miles around a major city. Whether triggered by drunken bravado or simply sober commitment to self-improvement, it’s a night when plans are hatched, promises made, to yourself as much as anyone else.
The marathon, of course, is often just the stick (or carrot) to beat (or tempt) us into a new, healthier way of living, one where running becomes as habitual as brushing your teeth. Some will start from ground zero, enduring aching joints and burning lungs in the weeks ahead before such beginners’ symptoms melt away like a spare tyre on the midriff. Others who signed up for a marathon will already be well versed in this madness, which both attracts and exacerbates the loopier personalities.
Well over a million people around the world will do a marathon this year, most running towards something (personal bests, social media likes or the satisfaction of a sizeable charity donation), others running away from something (like the demons that plague many distance runners when they're confined to a sedentary life).
Either way, if you’ve committed to the trial of miles in 2025, there are certain principles worth remembering. One of the best, which applies across most sports, is espoused by famed Italian coach Renato Canova: the training plan must follow the athlete, not the other way around.
Next Monday marks 15 weeks to the Boston Marathon. It’s now 16 weeks until London. Those running Belfast or Limerick have 17 weeks before judgement day, while those who’ve signed up for Cork have 21 weeks to get their ass in gear. As such, many across the country will now be embarking on four-month training plans that are mounted on their walls, sitting in their inbox or stored in their notes apps: a blend of fixed distances, times and intensities designed to take them where they need to be for the big day.
Which is where Canova’s advice comes in. Because things can and will go wrong on the way there, whether it’s illness, injury, a breakup, a death in the family or a boss who’s grinding your gears at work. It all matters. Every stressor is assimilated. The best ability on race day is availability, and a surefire way to scupper your chance of making the line is ignoring warning signs, being so rigid with The Plan that things go awry.
The most common error for runners of all levels is ramping things up too soon. Volume and intensity should be added like salt to a Shepherd’s pie: slowly, cautiously. That lesson was brought home in my friends’ WhatsApp group recently, one retired sprinter explaining he’d blown out his hamstring during a recreational game of five-a-side. “Forgot my age,” wrote the 35-year-old, a former national champion. “Forgot your inactivity,” wrote another, a coach to elite sprinters.
In the marathon, it’s rarely about the years, more the mileage. It’s no secret that most of the world’s best run 180-200km a week – some a little more, some a little less – but how much does training volume matter for the not-so-fleet-of-foot?
A study recently published in the Sports Medicine journal gives a good insight. By obtaining a mountain of data from Strava, the go-to place for runners to log their training, researchers revealed how volume and intensity correlated with marathon finishing times. They analysed over 150,000 marathoners during a 16-week build-up, the group having an average weekly training volume of 45km. Their primary conclusion shocked no one.
As Dr Daniel Muniz, senior lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University of Hertfordshire, put it: “The more miles you run in training, the faster your marathon time is likely to be.”
However, there were interesting nuances to be found within the data. The proportion of training done in zones two and three – at higher intensities – was similar between fast and slow runners, but the big difference was faster marathoners did more training – far, far more training – in zone one, at a lower intensity.
About 80% of the training by those in the fastest bracket (sub-2:30 marathoners) was done at a relaxed, conversational pace, while recreational runners ran easy much less frequently (57% for women, 67% for men). “Even the quickest recreational runners don’t get to 80% of their training being low intensity,” said Dr Ben Hunter, one of the authors.
That could be because slower runners don’t have the time or energy to do 150-200km a week and are trying to get bang for their buck, but it also suggests marathon coaches are on the money when telling newbies, ad nauseum, that they should slow down, counterintuitive as it might seem in the search for improvement.
Because success in this sphere is all about the long game, and pulling back on quality usually allows for more quantity – the key indicator of how fast you’ll run on race day. But it’s about doing only what you can handle, week after week, month after month. As Australian coach Nic Bideau, the husband of Sonia O’Sullivan, once put it: consistency trumps volume, volume trumps intensity. It’s simple, but something so many will forget as they charge head-first, highly motivated, into this New Year.
This is also an era where most things in sport have been commodified, and marathons are no exception. But while there’s no doubt €300 super shoes or expensive hydrogel carbohydrate drinks are useful, the biggest determinant of marathon performance is far more cost effective: how many miles you cover on the way there.
Beyond lactate monitors and GPS watches, recovery boots or promise-the-world supplements, the route to fulfilling potential was once captured by Frank Shorter, the 1972 Olympic marathon champion. “Two hard interval sessions a week and one long run – 20 miles or two hours, whichever comes first. Every other run is aerobic (easy), and you do as much of that for volume as you can handle. Do this for two or three years, and you'll get good.”
Now, that shouldn’t be seen as an invitation to crank out 100-mile weeks. Few runners have the time, energy or durability to withstand an elite’s workload. But in an age of fitness influencers and vast online spoofery, Shorter’s philosophy highlights the simplicity underpinning success for the world’s best. As Bideau once put it during a talk in Dublin many years ago: “If you want to be a good runner, you have to run – a lot.”
Everything else is simply window dressing. So whether you’re looking to make it around a Parkrun or to smash your PB at a Marathon Major, try not to get blindsided by the bullshit in 2025. Keep things simple. Keep it consistent.
Happy New Year, and long may you run.