A common question asked of me is how to get faster and decrease marathon time? Well, to get faster you need to run faster and to do that you need to incorporate interval sessions weekly.

Intervals are taxing, hard sessions. These sessions help to improve oxygen delivery to the muscles and the more oxygen which is delivered to your muscles, the faster and further you will be able to run. The goods news is these workouts only need to be completed once per week in your running program in order to reap the benefits.

Marathon Training Interval Workouts: 400m repeats on the track

400m is one lap on a track. When doing these workouts, you will run 400m at your 5K pace and jog one slow, easy recovery lap. If you are just beginning, start with three or four repeats and try to work your way up to eight or ten. So, if you started today and did 4x400m repeats, next week do 5, the next week 6, and so on until you hit your max.

Time yourself on the first repeat and aim to hit that time with every interval. Within a few weeks, you will notice a decrease (faster) 400m. This workout is tough, but it is crucial to your marathon training in order to finish faster.

You can move this workout to the road instead of the track. Time yourself for one 400m lap on the track and record it. If you ran in 1:30, then you know your intervals need to be set at that time. So, it doesn’t matter where you run the intervals, just hit know what time your intervals need to be set for.

Be sure to complete a good 10 minute warm-up and cool-down

The best day to do the interval workout is before a rest day. Rest is critical to your recovery from a hard workout. Your muscles actually build and repair themselves during your rest days. Also, don’t try this workout the day after your long run of 10 miles or more.

Good Luck. Train Hard.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Faster Marathon Time, Marathon, Run Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted by admin | in Faster Marathon Time, Marathon, Run Training | 3 Comments