Huge study of non-elite runners gives clues on best way to train for a marathon

One of the largest ever studies of marathon runners has given clues on how non-elites can best train for the 26.2-mile distance, as thousands begin their journey to a spring marathon.

Researchers analysed data for 119,452 individual recreational runners from fitness tracking app Strava, looking at their training in the 16-week lead up to 151,813 completed marathons.

The dataset was comprised of people who had trained for the London Marathon, New York Marathon or Dublin Marathon between 2014 and 2017.

Second author Dr Ben Hunter, lecturer in Exercise Physiology and Biomechanics at London Metropolitan University, said researchers observed that faster non-elite runners tended to do the bulk of their mileage – about 70% – at a conversational pace.

He said these runners did about 25% of their training at a moderate pace, where an athlete can speak but only in short sentences, and just 5% at high intensity, where an athlete is not able to speak in sentences and breathing becomes quite laboured.

This differed from the so-called 80/20 training approach reported in elite runners, where 80% of running is at a low intensity and 20% is high intensity, with very little in the middle ground.

“A lot of the data about best practice comes from elite marathon runners who typically run 160km (100 miles) to 220km (137 miles) per week which obviously isn’t the same mileage that recreational runners could hope to get to,” said Dr Hunter.

“So the whole goal of this was to see what’s the best practice for recreational athletes, those who are more mid-pack but then also who are getting sub three hour marathons, to see what recommendations we can drive.”

He said that they found “something slightly different” from the 80/20 principle was the case for non-elites.

“Males about 67% and females 57% even in the fastest runners, so they fall well short of that 80% that’s typically spoken about when it comes to elite runners.”

While he cautioned that it was not possible to draw causal links from the observational study, Dr Hunter suggested a pyramidal approach allows runners to “accrue more volume, more mileage without the mechanical load that’s associated with higher intensity running”.

“It also allows a greater amount of running without necessarily leading to a greater injury risk,” he said.

He added that the fastest non-elite runners, “to no-one’s surprise”, were those who ran the highest mileage of around 107km (66 miles) per week.

Asked for his advice to those training for a spring marathon, he stressed the importance of increasing mileage gradually to avoid injury risk, and being consistent.

The average age of the runners was 40 years old, and the marathon finishing times ranged between two-and-a-half hours and six hours.

Dr Daniel Muniz, senior lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University of Hertfordshire, said: “This is one of the largest ever studies of non-elite marathon runners.

“It shows that the more miles you run in training, the faster your marathon time is likely to be.

“And the more of that time spent in the easy comfortable zone one pace, the quicker your marathon will turn out to be.”

The research is published in the journal Sports Medicine.