These runs are faster than a marathon pace but are performed for a shorter period of time. Thursdays meant either hill repeats (just as it sounds: You run up a hill and then back down, just so you can tackle the beast again) or a sustained speed run. On Wednesdays I always did a recovery run, a less-demanding pace that encourage muscle growth. Tuesdays I usually did some type of track workout focused on speed rather than endurance.
![average speed of marathon runner average speed of marathon runner](https://post.healthline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Marathon_Runner_Female_Fitness-732x549-Thumbnail.jpg)
I followed the same workout pattern throughout: Mondays I cross-trained (almost exclusively by swimming, a sport I’d competed in through high school). The first three phases lasted a month each, and the last one two weeks. My curated plan included four different phases (or “blocks”) of workouts: base (with paces that matched my current fitness state), initial, transition, and final (with paces that were a bit faster than my goal for the marathon). And I had many: How long is the break between these two sets? What actually is a progression run? Should I get one of those belt things that holds your hydration gels? Whatever query I had, she always had the answer. Keeping track of this process with a running watch or simply pen and paper can be a key tool. For both long runs and total weekly mileage, the number of miles ebbed and flowed, with “down” weeks with less miles and “up” weeks with more. It’s hard to predict how someone without years of experience will react to an increase in mileage. Woods conservatively said we’d start with that goal and see how I did. Running at about an 8-minute-mile pace, I remembered being tired but not exhausted, and I recovered quickly there was definitely room for improvement. I chose my goal time based on how I did in my most recent half-marathon. The Boston Marathon is unique in that you must qualify to compete, whereas others, like my race, the Chicago Marathon, is lottery-based. For reference, qualifying times for the Boston Marathon are, as of 2020, three hours and thirty minutes for women in my age group (18-34) and three hours flat for men of my same cohort. 03.10 milesĪmbitiously, I told Woods that I wanted to run the race somewhere in the range of three hours and 40 minutes-fast but not crazy-fast. Our species’ history means that most healthy humans should be able to jog a marathon. Humans have a marvelous workaround: Because we sweat through pores in our skin, we’re able to keep our respiration steady as we trot. Unable to pant and breathe at the same time, they ultimately overheat and collapse. It’s a great method-until they start running and all of a sudden their bodies need deep breaths of oxygen to keep going. To cool off, other mammals expel extra heat by panting. While humans aren’t as fast as some sprinters in the animal kingdom, we rule at endurance because of a key physiological difference. That’s where proper training comes in-which enables you to run faster and for longer before your muscles fail you. Getting your body ready for a marathon means ensuring your muscles will be able to perform for 26.2 miles.
![average speed of marathon runner average speed of marathon runner](https://southslopenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/How-Fast-Do-Marathon-Runners-Run_1.jpg)
Small pockets of modern hunter-gatherer societies, such as the Kalahari Bushman of southern Africa and the Tarahumara (or Rarámuri) people of Mexico’s Chihuahua region, still use this method, albeit far more infrequently. The hypothesis goes that back when Homo sapiens and Neanderthals shared hunting territory, our super power as a species was our ability to chase down prey by steadily trotting behind it until the animal collapsed from exhaustion-what anthropologists call persistence hunting. Christopher McDougall argues in the runner’s cult classic Born to Run that evolution hard-wired the human body for jogging. But many scientists and anthropologists maintain that you don’t need to be from a long line of elites the skill is in our DNA. My dad jogs strictly for health reasons, my mother abhors the suggestion, and I don’t have any sprinters hiding up my family tree. I participated in a few sports in high school, but not track or cross country. At first glance, nothing in my background suggested I could run such a long course.