How to run a marathon - 3 - Endurance build-up

If you have been following my suggested schedule for taking up running, How to run a marathon , you will have done more or less easy running, somewhere on the following lines:

(Monday to Sunday, minutes of easy running)
Week 1 - 10, 0, 10, 0, 10, 0, 15
Week 2 - 0, 15, 15, 0, 20, 0, 20
Week 3 - 0, 20, 20, 0, 30, 0, 30

This is basically a build-up of endurance, the essential component of distance running. Endurance is a measure of your capacity to carry out an aerobic activity for a prolonged period. It involves the burning of glycogen stored in your muscles, using oxyen (hence the term "aerobic") that is dissolved in the blood, to provide energy. We derive glycogen, the fuel, from carbohydrates that we eat. Oxygen enters the bloodstream through our lungs, and is pumped via our heart through the arteries to our muscles. As you build up endurance, you increase the efficiency of oxygen intake into the bloodstream, as well as the capacity of your heart to pump oxygen-enriched blood to your muscles. There is no speed involved yet, but your ability to maintain a running activity for a sustained period without getting breathless is improving continuously.

You could build up to a marathon simply using this method of gradually increasing your endurance, although as the distances get longer you would need to limit the longer runs to once per week at the most, filling in the rest of the week with shorter runs.

However, this has an important drawback. Improving your endurance through long slow distance training will only result in long slow performances once you start competing. This could be good enough for you, but you might be a bit more ambitious, hence the need, once you have built up a strong endurance base, for speed training.

Unfortunately, three weeks after taking up running, the endurance base is still not good enough to support speedwork. Remember, distance running is all about patience, perseverance and discipline. We need to continue building up our endurance, our capacity for running without losing our breath, for a few more weeks. Here's my suggested schedule for the fourth and the fifth week of build-up:

Week 4 - 0, 30, 30, 0, 30, 0, 40
Week 5 - 0, 40, 40, 0, 40, 0, 50

In the meantime, it would be a good idea to vary your training sessions as much as possible, by running along different routes. Otherwise, repeated running along the same route tends to become quite tedious.

As you run on a regular basis, the distances run get longer, and the routes chosen more varied, you are bound to encounter difficult conditions - bad weather, difficult terrain, dogs, injuries, illnesses. I will be considering these factors in the next section.