“Did you hear that?” I directed my annoyance in my husband’s direction.

“What?” he responded in a tone that indicated he was not sure if he wanted to hear the oncoming rant.

It was a mattress commercial on TV— “It’s not a race, it’s a marathon.” they boldly proclaimed.

“I’m not sure what this has to do with mattresses, and that’s not how the saying goes.”

‘It’s not a race; it’s a marathon’ should be ‘It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.’

First of all, dear mattress company, a marathon is the very definition of a race. Your intention in running the marathon, a race, may not be to win it, but it is still a race.

The actual saying is, “It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.” It means we should take on challenges in life by pacing ourselves like we would in a marathon. When you sprint, you go all out from the start line, but in a marathon, If you run too hard too soon, you could be in hurt-city by the time you hit the 10K mark. The same applies to any goals you may be chasing. Sprinting towards the finish line of goal achievement, when the finish line is far away, will leave you burnt out and broken.

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon got me thinking about training for a marathon. The truth is when you train for a marathon, it is about so much more than running. How to adjust your lifestyle for your best marathon performance.

It’s not a marathon; it’s a lifestyle.

If you want to run a successful race, you have to become the kind of person who can run a marathon. It means so much more than logging the miles week after week, and month after month. It’s about commitment, recovery, sleep, nutrition, stress management, mindset, and oh yeah, training.

You don’t just decide to run a marathon; the most successful runners will adjust their lifestyle to fit into a marathoner’s life. How do you become a marathoner? You think and behave like one. How to adjust your lifestyle for your best race performance.

RECOVERY

I list recovery first because it is the most often neglected. You don’t improve performance, increase speed, get stronger, grow muscle, or get faster during the workout. It’s the recovery period after the exercise when the magic (I mean, science) happens. If you don’t allow adequate time for your body to recover, you will not see the full benefit from your hard workouts. If your body is trying to recover, and you keep hammering it with more taxing workouts, you sacrifice the most meaningful result: improved performance. More is not always better.

Of course, when you are marathon training, it requires a lot of running — possibly more training than you ever needed before. You are asking a lot of your body. The key is to find the balance of training vs. recovering. Too little training and too much recovering sounds a bit like an excuse. Too much exercise, not enough recovering, is a recipe for disaster.

In a well-rounded training plan, there should be a mix of high-intensity workouts, low-intensity workouts, and rest days. The exact formula depends on you, but most runners make the mistake of too many hard workouts, not enough easy runs. Need help with a training plan?

There is not one ideal recovery protocol that will apply to every runner. How much recovery you need depends on factors like your physical age, your training age (how experienced you are), your genetics, your nutrition, and your stress levels. Some of these are out of our control. I wasn’t born with elite athlete genetics, I haven’t been training since I was twelve, and so I won’t be able to log as many miles as Kara Goucher does each week.

I accept my limitations, yet maximize what I can control.

Your recovery needs are highly individual, you must fine-tune them over time. You must listen to your body and learn how to do that. Many runners take discipline too far and ignore the early warning signs of injury or over-training.

One way to track your recovery needs is to keep a running journal. You can log workouts, how you felt before, during, and after. These logs can help you connect the dots between your workouts and how much recovery is optimal. A running journal can highlight trends in your performance that may be missed otherwise.

Most athletes need at least one or two days of full rest per week. Most athletes need just a single speed session per week.

To run a successful marathon, start tracking your recovery as diligently as you follow your workouts. Recovery is part of the training plan.

SLEEP

Sleep is recovery’s twin brother. While sleep needs vary from athlete to athlete, most adults need at least seven hours of quality sleep per night. If you are putting a lot of stress on your body, like in marathon training, it is even more important for recovery and performance to aim for at least eight.

If we prioritize recovery and try to get optimal sleep each night, our bodies can recover from our hard workouts. Lack of quality sleep or inadequate deep sleep can have negative consequences on our performance.

Avoid electronics in the evening hours before bed. Don’t eat or drink in the hours leading to bedtime. Quality is as important as quantity. Control the factors you can to maximize your results.

NUTRITION

Some may think a runner’s diet is about carbo-loading pasta and finish-line beers. While there are times for indulgences and celebrations, most of the marathon runner’s nutrition during the training cycle should be built around whole food nutrition to maximize recovery and performance.

Eat to Run: A practical guide to pre and post-running nutrition for optimal performance.

You are asking a lot of your body when you train to run 26.2 miles. Healthy nutrition will fuel your body for workouts and help your recovery.

Nutrition is highly individual, so I do recommend some experimenting in the early to middle stages of training on the foods that make you look, feel, and perform your best. For most athletes, it usually means a balanced mix of whole-food carbohydrates, healthy fats, and protein derived from nature.

Marathon training is not usually an ideal time for calorie or macro-nutrient restriction. Training for performance is not the same as training for weight loss. Get very clear on your number one goal: Is it to run a marathon or lose weight? Focusing on one goal at a time will give you the best results.

Why did I gain weight while training for a marathon?

In addition to your training and recovery log, I recommend a food log, not to track calories or macros specifically, but to follow how the foods you eat make you feel. Did you feel sluggish after a high carbohydrate meal, or did you feel energized? Do you feel better if you work out on an empty stomach or after a meal?

Everyone is different, so it’s not about what your peers are doing, it’s about what works for you. If you pay close attention and adjust your nutrition based on how you feel, you’ll get the best results.

Approach your diet (food intake) as an experiment. Keep track of what you eat in what amounts, then pay close attention to how those foods affect your training. If you feel bad, or perform poorly, consider looking closely at your diet and make adjustments based on that outcome. If you feel and perform great, do more of that.

HYDRATION

Whether in hot or cold weather training, hydration is essential. Even a slight decline in hydration status can negatively affect your performance. Again, how much water you need each day is highly individual. Some say 8-10 glasses per day, and more if the weather is hot, or if you sweat a lot. You might have heard of drinking half your body weight in ounces — so a 150-pound person would need at least 75 ounces (approx 9 glasses) a day.

Use whatever starting point makes sense to you, then adjust as needed. Monitor your urine color. Completely clear urine may indicate you are over hydrated, and dark urine means you likely need to drink more water.

Use electorates when re-hydrating after an intense workout to replace lost salt.

Remember, it is not all about the water you drink, but foods and beverages high in water add to your hydration level, even coffee and tea. Yes, even if they have caffeine—caffeine may be a mild diuretic, which means you lose water, but with the water consumed in the drink, it is usually still a net positive. You shouldn’t rely on caffeinated beverages for hydration, but including them as part of a whole hydration strategy is appropriate.

Add your water intake to your training log. Are you running to the bathroom every thirty minutes? Maybe back off a bit. Feeling sluggish? Try increasing water intake.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

Running a marathon is stressful for your body. Stress has a bad reputation, but the right amount of stress is good for you. You must stress your body for it to improve. Without stress, you will always stay the same. It’s not the stress that is a problem; it’s too much stress. When you have more stress than you can recover from, your body breaks down.

Stress comes from many places: your workouts, your family life, your career, your education, your social circle, and poor nutrition.

If you are putting stress on your body by logging a lot of training miles, have a fight with your spouse, a missed deadline at work, slept poorly, then you try to escape it all with a bottle of wine, your body won’t be able to recover from all of that. Stress in your life can limit your body’s recovery processes. Poor recovery equals poor performances.

Personal stress can affect your training. While you are putting stress on your body in the form of training miles, you must minimize the stress (as much as possible) in the areas of your life that you can control.

But try not to stress about too much stress. We can’t control how our boss, spouse, or kids (or dogs) behave, but we do have some control over how we deal with it. This article isn’t a self-help zen blog, but to be aware of how the stress in your life affects your training is the first step. Everything is connected. If you have a lot of stress that is out of your control, it is best to minimize intense workouts during that time.

Try to carve out quiet time for yourself to read, meditate, or pray. Take walks in nature, schedule massages, or talks with old friends. Keep a gratitude journal. In a perfect world, we have time for all of that, but in the real world, if we do the best we can to minimize stress, we can maximize our performances.

MINDSET

To become a marathoner, you must think and act like a marathoner. You must accept that there will be obstacles and be willing to tackle them along the way.

Repeat after me: Training for a marathon is hard. There will be challenges. I will stumble along the way. I will want to give up at some point. I will question my abilities. I will have hard days. The more you accept that it’s not an easy path, the less shocked you will be when training doesn’t go as planned. Spoiler alert: Training will not go as planned. Understand?

Repeat after me: Training for a marathon is rewarding. I will overcome obstacles. I will be flexible. I won’t give up. I will focus on the good days. I will be consistent. I will succeed. I can do this!

I like Coach McMillan’s suggestion of an awesomeness journal. Every time you have a good run, achieve a new pace, hit a new distance, or feel good about your training or performance, write it down. When you feel successful, make a note of it—then on those days that don’t go so well, read through your journal as a reminder that you are awesome.

You have to believe you can do it. In the face of obstacles, you must believe in your ability to figure it out. A coach can help, but you need to believe in yourself first.

Think like an athlete.

TRAINING

A marathon is a challenging goal, and you will have to commit to the time for preparation. You may have to go to bed early when your friends are meeting up for drinks. You may have to replace Sunday brunch with Sunday long runs. You might have to run when you are tired, or when you don’t feel like it. You may have to get up early to fit in a training run before a busy day, or put in a run in the dark after a long day. When the excitement of a new goal wears off, you still have to put in the work. When no one cares, you still have to put in the training.

INJURY PREVENTION

Injury prevention includes:

Injury prevention starts with an appropriate training plan for your unique abilities and fitness level. Too much of an increase in mileage or intensity can lead to injury. Following a generic training plan to the letter may place you among the injured. A plan must be flexible and change (or remain the same) as needed as you move through the training cycle.
Mobility, flexibility, and prehab exercises. Better foam rolling techniques to improve running performance and injury prevention.
Strength training. Muscles stabilize the joints. You don’t need to devote hours to the gym each week (who has time for that during marathon training?), but it’s crucial to incorporate runner-specific strength into your routine, even if it's just 15 minutes a day.

How your desk job is ruining your running performance.

Training for a marathon is not easy, but it’s rewarding. Are you ready to be the kind of person who runs marathons? It starts with your daily behaviors because it’s not a marathon; it’s a lifestyle. This applies if you are training to run your first 5K or training for an ultra-marathon. Your lifestyle heavily dictates your results.

Excuse me now while I write an angry letter to the marketing department of the mattress company explaining the nuances of a marathon.

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