Marathoners: test your aerobic fitness with this moderate distance workout

There’s truly nothing like marathon training–putting your life on hold for 10 to 16 weeks to train for a three- to four-hour race. What makes the marathon intriguing is the uncertainty, and whether you can finish in the time you set out for. You can do everything right to prepare for race day, but you can’t control the events that transpire on the course–weather, fuelling, an unfamiliar course, etc. The best thing you can do is set yourself up for success by knowing your mental and physical capabilities. In workouts, you want to be sure you are running enough volume in workouts to build mileage while benefiting from aerobic gains.

It’s essential to understand that the distance is almost entirely aerobic; your heart rate (HR) will stay well below your maximum for almost the entire race, unless you find yourself in a sprint finish. This means you don’t need to do extremely fast workouts.

Workout:

Five reps of 3K at goal marathon pace or faster, with 3 mins jog rest between reps

The purpose of this workout is to simulate race day and to determine where you at in terms of your aerobic fitness. Start each of the five reps at your goal marathon pace, and subtly increase your pace on the third to fifth reps. Treat the rest as an upbeat jog, allowing your body to recover, but not completely slowing down.

This is a workout you should do in the middle of your training block–let’s say six to eight weeks out from race day. If you are training for a 3:30 marathon, you should aim to hit each 3K rep at 15:00 or faster and make sure your jog isn’t slower than 6:00/km.

The five by 3K workout can also be used for half-marathoners—but instead of doing the workout at marathon pace, half-marathoners would do it at their goal HMP. The entire workout should come out to around 20 km in volume.

Completing this workout should give you an idea of where you are in your training before your upcoming race. If you can easily hit the paces on each rep via short rest, you shouldn’t have a problem tackling more mileage or harder workouts, but if you fall off the pace, you may want to reconsider your time goal.