Photo Credit: Randy Lemoine
This is a guest article by Luke Davies
On Sunday 25th April 2010, I completed my first ever marathon in 02:58:40 and proposed to the love of my life on live TV at the end of it all with a diamond ring that I carried in my back pocket for the entire 26.2 miles. Here’s the proof:
I cannot begin to describe this surreal experience but what I can do is tell you what I did to get a sub 3 hour time, and explain why running a marathon can be for everyone and isn’t some form of muscle destroying, evil, act of cardio.
Let’s Be Realistic – I Didn’t Start From Scratch!
I want to be completely honest, even if it means taking the shine off my result a bit. It is true that I had never run a marathon before London 2010, but I knew that I had the ability to run one. Years ago, when I was an overweight teenager, I would plod my local roads desperate to shed fat. It worked! As many young guys do, I then wanted to put some (female attracting) muscle onto my frame, so took to weightlifting. That worked too. Slowly but surely I left long distance running behind years ago because I thought it no longer had anything to offer me apart from wearing my joints down and making me skinny.
I entered the Virgin 2010 London Marathon because I wanted that achievement to my name even if I didn’t run long distances in training anymore. Running had played a big part of my life so far and I owed it to myself to get a marathon under my belt. When I got my acceptance e-mail, I knew I had to make some changes. My sprint and high intensity interval training (HIIT) had to be replaced with marathon training as of the New Year. That gave me 4 months to re-kindle those running legs.
ANYONE CAN RUN A MARATHON…IF THEY PUT THEIR MIND TO IT!
With the exception of very few, I firmly believe that we are all capable of running a marathon, it just takes some willpower! Without intending to be spiteful, there were plenty of people running with me who were not in good shape. It may have taken them 6 hours to go the distance but they still did it. So anyone can do it if they have the desire but WHY would you want to run one?
Now you may be thinking that you will be perfectly happy to go through life without a single marathon to your name. In fact the majority of us do just that. Having experienced the emotions that come with completing a marathon, I would urge you to think again. Marathons are run by few because they are hard but when did the human race ever give up because the going got tough? Believe me; running your first (and maybe last) marathon will fill you with emotions that you will not experience from anything else.
There is no Magic Running Formula, Just Sweat
There are numerous ways to train for and complete a marathon, so I am going to keep it simple. The easiest way for me to meet my goals was to think of the race like a school exam. You wouldn’t go in to an exam hall without having completed at least one past exam paper. The same goes for running. You shouldn’t rock up to the start line of a marathon without (as my mum says in the video) practicing your running at a near marathon distance and pace.
Once you’ve decided that you will run a marathon and secure your place at the start line, the first thing I would do is actually sit back and assess your current position.
Marathon training typically means a long journey ahead, so regardless of how good a runner you are, you have to be a good planner from the word go. I got a sub-3 hour time because I worked hard for it, not because I am a running regular. Before I started my 4-month-long marathon training period, I had not run over 5 miles for at least 1 year.
As I have already said, any running I had done was short and fast. Self-confidence will play a big part of your success so you have to build your training slowly, no point setting out for 15 miles on day one of training. I have picked what I believe were the 3 key marathon training ingredients to achieving a time I am proud of:
-Miles
-Nutrition
-Mentality
Miles
I kept my training ‘schedule’ very simple and flexible. I don’t like to be ruled by fitness schedules but I had to accept that consistency builds a successful marathon runner. I ran 4 or 5 times per week: 1 ‘long run’ on the weekend and 3 or 4 short runs between home and my work. Marathon training miles HAVE to be completed to get your MILES IN THE BANK but your training does not have to take over your life!
I made sure that mine integrated as smoothly as possible into my daily life. I did my long run at 8:00 a.m. every Saturday morning, so my weekend wasn’t lost, and I realize I am lucky to be able to shower at work, so took advantage of that. I have heard of people clocking up over 100 miles per week in their marathon training. This is not necessary!
I ran a sub-3 hour marathon based on 30-35 training miles per week. Injury can ruin a marathon, so I varied my training volumes depending on what my body told me. At times, I was guilty of over-training and running myself into the ground. How do I know this? Because I got ill a few times during my training.
Nutrition
Typically, my nutritional philosophy is simple. 80% of the time I stick to a whole, natural, primal diet. I will admit that this probably dropped to 60% sometimes during my marathon training. As it was my first marathon, I wanted to fuel my body sufficiently and not lose too much weight. See the before and after shots here.
I did turn to carbs a bit more than normal to fuel my long runs. There is no need to ‘carb load’ for runs less than 10 miles in my opinion. Some of my best (shorter) training runs were done first thing in the morning, fuelled only by a black coffee and water. So long as you have sufficient fat supplies, your body can become quite effective at using its fat stores on the go.
As I said, I preferred to go with readily available carbs for the longer runs. So yes, I did eat wholegrain pasta, and drink some sugary lucozade (editor’s note: I added a link because I had no idea what the hell this stuff was!) but I don’t feel guilty because it was never going to be a long-term nutrition strategy.
Training for a marathon can be intense and speedy recovery is important. I consumed varied protein sources (lean meat, fatty fish) after hard runs. Going back to the exam analogy, you need to know what food you will eat on the big day. I soon found that my favorite marathon breakfast was porridge with chopped banana, eaten 3 hours before running. Nobody wants to get Runner’s Trots, so learn what food and energy products you can digest!
Mentality
This is the most important of the three key training ingredients for me. A negative thought can kill your run stone dead. Marathon training not only challenged me physically but also mentally as well.
I found myself getting grouchy and short-tempered with people and my girlfriend (now fiancée) took the brunt of this. I managed to overcome this by sharing my thoughts on LMD Fitness, interacting on running forums, sometimes keeping a training diary and putting my thoughts down on paper. To go the distance and complete your training, you need to be mentally strong and fresh.
Get people behind your cause. Most people run marathons for charity. I did, and reminding yourself of this cause can be very inspiring in itself! Marathon training actually reminded me of something that I had forgotten about running. It is healthy for your mind. The simple act of running alone can free you from the stresses of your life. I guarantee you will feel better and find mental clarity when you go out for a run. I never know what I will think about when I run, the thoughts are just organic – that is the beauty of it all.
On the day itself, have a few positive phrases to repeat to yourself as you need to. Visualize yourself crossing the line, arms held high above your head. Before the run, think of things that could go wrong and think of how you will react as and when that problem occurs. Knowing that I would propose to the love of my life at the end of the London Marathon drove me on when the going got tough in mile 20. As for the crowd, well, you need to run a marathon to see for yourself… incredible!
So What Are Your Waiting For?
If you thought you couldn’t care less about running a marathon, I hope I have persuaded you otherwise. If you are worried about losing your hard earned muscle, you needn’t be. Muscle can be regained, and you don’t have to look like a marathon runner to run a marathon! If you aren’t already checking out a marathon near you, then I hope you will at least put your trainers on and go for a run. I did and it changed my life!
Luke authors the blog LMD Fitness – where he shares his Rule-Free Fitness tips to keep you lean all year round.
Pretty inspirational. Congrats on the engagement and well done on the marathon! What an awesome video to commemorate the moment.
hell yea! as soon as Luke sent me the video I was pumped to read the article. Then I was even more stoked that I got it into the post!
I’m currently training for the Marine Corps Marathon on October 31 and a small powerlifting competition in July. I am very interested in how my endurance training will affect my lifts. I train heavy (85-95% of my 1RM) 6-7 days per week for 10-15 sets of singles or triples on the compound lifts. I do not plan to alter this even though I am running. I plan to test the commonly held belief that running will make me weak. As I’m well on my way to breaking 400 on my squat and deadlift by the end of the month, we’ll see how this affects my progress. I’ll let you know how all of this goes, it is going to be an interesting experience.
so you’re training with maximal weights 6-7 times per day on top of your marathon training?
I do about 100k a week rowing, we only lift twice a week for strength and my lifts increase. I hope this guy is eating a shed load of kcals and sleeping 13 hours a day.
Hi Dieter?
I assume this is your fist marathon. If so, I think you will probably find that undertaking marathon training alongside your curent lifting sessions will grind you down.
I do believe that you can train for a marathon and not lose strength. It depends on how serious you want to take your marathon race time. I was prepared to cut my weight training back from 3 times per week to 1 time per week for a purely maintenance purpose. Each to their own but just don’t under-estimate the marathon, and don’t over do your training! You wont lose hardly any of your strength gains if you scale it back to 3/4 lifting sessions per week. Good luck and keep us posted! Luke
Thanks all for the replies, I wrote my comment quickly this morning and upon reflection I should have more thoroughly explained it. Also, I didn’t mean to hijack this post as what Luke did really inspires me.
JC: Yes, I train 6-7 times per week on top of my marathon training. Basically I combine a back squat, a push, and a press 3 days per week and do front squats plus an Olympic Lift the other three days. I sometimes train 7 days a week if I feel like it. I run 4 days per week and usually do my runs in the morning and my workouts in the evenings. I realize this is insanely high frequency and do not recommend anyone follow anything like this until they have sufficiently trained their body to tolerate the workload.
Luke: I saw your post this morning and was pleased to see that even with bodyweight exercises you maintained much of your strength while training. I too want to challenge the conventional wisdom that running will cause your muscles to melt off. Therefore I have slowly ramped up the distances over the past few months, so I could keep up the frequency. Right now my weekend run is about 10 miles (10 minute pace) as I’m trying to take things slow. I’d like to continue training as I am but if my body seems near to overtraining I’ll be sure to scale back my lifting.
By the way, congratulations on proposing and running your marathon in under 3 hours to boot, that is incredible. Best of luck to you and your fiancée!
Thanks Dieter. I’m happy that you are self-aware and will curtail your training should your body ask you to do so.
I didn’t ramp up the miles to 20 until 1 month before the marathon. My furthest training distance was 22.5 miles though I know going 20 in training would be enough to give you confidence to complete the marathon on the day. Hope this helps… Keep going and track your progress (but don’t expect to run better every time you go out! Slow and steady wins the race)
Awesome Luke! Great job & thanks for sharing your experience.
No problem Grok – I wanted to put myself out there as a bit of an ‘endurance experiment’ to hopefully dispell some myths of running too…
That was a great read. The training load does seem low at first glance, did you a lot of “race pace” tempo runs?
I am aiming for a 6:10 2k which is the GB Heavyweight rowing threshold for trialling, not that my physiology would get me into the squad, but I think it’s a good aim. So much like you work balance and nutrition are my stalwarts.
Congratulations on your proposal. It takes a lot of balls to do it and in front millions.
Fred,
I know that covering less than 40 miles per week at first appears quite low given that I achieved a sub-3 hour time but it was (as you say) dictated by my work/life balance. I can see how you could run 6 days a week but personally I think I would have seriously heightened my chances of a damaging injury if I had done so. Come race day, I was confident that I could go the distance. The sub-3 hour part came on the day when I put my mind into the equation, in a way that I hadn’t quite managed when training solo.
Your 6:10 2k sounds achievable – go for it!