How to Train on the Trails for a Marathon

Training for a road marathon on the trails? It can definitely be done effectively with a bit of thought and planning. You’ll save your body a lot of hard tarmac impact and more than likely you’ll spend time in a heathier more enjoyable environment. Here are coach and race ambassador Tom Craggs’ top tips on training for your road marathon on the trails.

Natural assets: Embrace the undulating terrain. Hill training is great for build the strength endurance you need to sustain your pace in the final 10km of the marathon.

Try this: Consider working higher intensity efforts around a hill trail loop working both up and down hill at a controlled discomfort for block do 6-10 minutes and 3 or 4 sets. As you get stronger you can even include these within a longer mid week run of 75-90 minutes.

Run on feel: One of the biggest benefits of training off road is that it can take some of the stress out of constantly worrying about pace and getting obsessed with times as opposed the process of just running. However you need to get good at judging your own sense of effort.

Try this: Imagine a scale from 1-10 where 1 is pretty much a fast walk, building up through a fully conversational effort up to 10 where you might be running at an effort you could only hold for 4-8 minutes or so in a race. The majority of your training should be in that relaxed easy 2-5/10 area.

Mix it up: Whilst the benefits of hitting the trails are huge its clearly important to develop a bit of specific endurance on the surface you are going to race on.

Try this: Plan in 3-4 key runs between now and race where you get on to the tarmac and spend some time at your planned marathon pace. A good way to do this within a long run is to tackle something like 2 hours 45 minutes – 3 hours with the final 60 minutes at goal marathon pace.

Taper caution: As race day approaches think about your routines carefully. With your body tired from lots of hard miles and your brain focused on the coming race your risk of injury increases.

Try this: In those final 3-6 weeks consider carefully whether you should be tackling those more risky technical routes. If you are really experienced and happy, of course go for it, but if you are new to the trails limit the risk of a badly timed fall and stick to consistent easier to run trails.

‘Controlled discomfort’: Your body gets fitter in response to stress. We have to work a bit harder sometimes in order to get fitter, but the key with the marathon is to keep this harder work specific to tackling 26.2 miles.

Try this: A couple of harder sessions each week work well for most runners. One of these could be run at or around marathon effort in longer blocks of 15-30 minutes or within a consistent run that builds a little each week. The other run makes sense to work at ‘threshold’ effort or 3-4 word asnwer effort. Imagine running 10km-10 mile type effort if on the roads. 5-6 weeks of this work and you really will boost your fitness. Build up in basic blocks e.g. 4 x 6 minutes, 5 x 5 minutes, 3 x 10 minutes, 2 x 15 minutes etc.

Half measures: A half marathon can be a good option to include 3-6 weeks out from race day. It can help you break up the final few weeks of training, help you feel confident in your preparations and give you a chance to practice race day kit and nutrition.

Try this: You don’t need to run a hard race, you could consider running your half at your goal marathon pace with easy running either side to leave you with a great training run.

Tom Craggs is England Event Lead for Long Distance Running and Runners World UK Head Coach. He is one of the UK’s most in demand coaches, coaching runners from beginners right through to GB elite athletes including some of the UK’s most well-known runners.