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Marathon Training

Randy Accetta and Greg Wenneborg

Human Kinetics

http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/Marathon-Training-eCourse?associate=16042

Course online

Marahon Training is a course online with an e-book including training strategies for novice marathoners and novice, experienced and competitive runners alike. It is organized in seven main chapters describing the key factors for marathon training, how to use three training efforts, and how to design a complete training plan including daily workouts. The readers will also learn how to design a complete 16-week marathon training programme for each of the four general categories of runners using a periodized program.

It is a book useful not only for coaches but also for sport psychologists for  the reason that it describe the mental aspects of the marathon. For instance the autors write: “Training for a marathon requires patience, goal oriented and focused training, and personal and physical sacrifices that are not as necessary in shorter race distances.” The authors show to understand very well the great commitment reuired to train at least 4 days a week a long period before to be able to run a race.

For this reason they say that “a large part of the romance associated with the distance is the commitment to the task. Training week after week for months on end often becomes a sort of spiritual an therapeutic endeavor for many people.” They are very realistic in the training approach probably because they know that this text is more oriented to provide information to build a marathon program for novices and beginners, and therefore they explain the relevance of: easy running for months, extension of long running and to start fast running only when you run more than 25 miles a week.

They talk about the mixt system “walk and run” and provide a 16 weeks program for the novices who would like to use this system to appoach the long distances. Another aspects they find useful for novices consists to have explained the psychophysiological positive role to practice a conversation pace running.

For the authors, novice runners are individuals who has never run before or they run less than 10-15 miles a week. They are usually excited about learning, they need daily advices not to run too much. One goal for them is to become aware of their body signals. Novice marathoners run more than 25 miles a week, may be they have already run a marathon in 4h30m and they want to break the wall of 4h. For this reason they have a good runner self-confidence but they need a lot of attention by the coach, because they suppose to know how to do. Experienced runners run between 25- 50 miles a week, may be they completed a marathon or may be not. They already followed a program but they need to be convinced to change it to improve. The competitive runners run over 60 miles including a long session each week. They need to start to believe in the new program proposed. They need a coach spending significant time quantity of counseling to move toward a different coaching program.

This are in my opinion the most important themes that a sport psychologist can learn from this course. Obviously the coaches will learn how to build a marathon program for these different kind of runners. Finally, I recommend this book also because it’s full of practical advices for the young coaches or those who are new in this track and field discipline.