Before I begin this post, I must stress that the most important thing for marathon improvement is distance and consistency, plain and simple. Marathon success is built on consistency and adding as much distance to your weekly total week in, week out.  Consistent training over a long period of time will trump pure talent, with no work ethic, all day long.  This is why I love running, there are no short cuts, it rewards hard work with results. In other sports, say football for example, you may have a talented player who doesn’t put in the hard yards but shines on match day and is able to paper over the cracks with pure talent alone, think Maradona in his party hey-days but still guiding Nepali to a league title.  In marathon running you will never see a race won by a ‘party boy’, even with the special drugs that seem to the be the norm in African runners these days. Taking these two factors out of the equation what else is a staple diet of a marathon runner improving their finishing times.  I’m going to talk about three runs every marathon runner needs to add to their weekly arsenal to run quicker.

First what I believe the most important run is the medium to long run in the middle of the week at as close to marathon pace as possible.  Back in the day when I was a marathon show pony we use to run home twice a week from the city to the suburbs giving us anything from sixteen kilometres up to twenty-five, depending on the route home.  At the time I was running around the two hours forty-five, or quicker, marathon time so would set the dial around the four minute to four minute fifteen seconds a kilometre pace.  It was testing but do-able after a long day at work. There’d be a small group of us, and we’d start slow increasing pace as we neared our destination, isn’t this the way with all run’s truth be told.  My good friend Paul Mitchell was training for his first sub3 marathon and he would be right on his marathon pace, or even quicker, while I’d happily skip along chatting most of the way. Paul would eventually just miss out on a sub3 at the Melbourne marathon by less than two minutes, so these runs proved their worth.  For me it was a twice weekly run close to marathon pace over a good distance, sandwiched between smaller runs at lunchtime with the usual suspects.  I’m convinced these runs allowed me to get use to running at marathon pace and gave me the confidence that adding ten to twenty kilometres on race day wouldn’t be an issue.

When I ran a three hour four-minute marathon at Bibra Lake in 2024 I knew beforehand I would struggle to go sub3 when in a training run weeks prior to the event, I struggled to hold marathon pace for a thirty-minute block within a long run. I hadn’t done enough medium to long runs at marathon pace and as I said earlier running is an honest sport, you can’t hide from lack of proper training in the event.  I did manage to get to twenty-six kilometres before I was ejected off the back of the sub3 bus but I failed to build on that for another crack in October of the same year in Perth, sacrificing my sub3 for a back yard ultra in August. I regret running the BYU now as my heart wasn’t in it and this torpedoed my chances of a sub3 at Perth, in the end coming home ten minutes slower than my Bibra Lake marathon time in three hours and fourteen minutes.

The next run is the most obvious, the long run on the weekend, although whatever day you run it is fine. It just needs to be longer than your ‘normal’ run and slower and this is the crunch point here, the slower point. Most people run longer once a week but they stick to their shorter pace bracket and end up doing more harm than good. The Sunday long run (most people run long Sunday for some reasons?) needs to be at a much reduced pace, one that allows you to put the world to rights with your fellow runners.  Of course, what happens is somebody will eventually start to step up the pace and I’ve been involved in hundreds of sprint finishes at the end of an east long run.  Back in the day it was expected that there would be a progressive ramp up, kilometre by kilometre , for the last ten kilometres or so resulting in a near sprint situation as the coffee shop came into view.

The Sunday long runs use to be all about running then somebody suggested we have a coffee post run. This escalated to food, usually pancakes on the pretext they were running healthy replacing carbohydrates (and sugar!), and before long we would spend more time post run talking about running, than actually running. That’s the same these days, natural progression when there is less running to talk about and more life stories, putting the world to rights I suppose.  The Sunday long run has morphed into more social bonding , over good coffee, than actual running but back in the day it was all running.

The final must-do run for marathon improvement is racing, any distance but often.  As you can see from an extract from my running spreadsheet, just in case Strava is ever destroyed, in 2013 I ran a lot, run medium long runs a lot and raced a lot. The result speak for themselves backing up my post. I also did a free circuit class twice a week which I loved. (highlighted in purple.)  So cross training is also a good thing to do for marathon improvements, again we all know this but in 2013 I was actually doing it.  The last twelve months I’ve been hitting the Pilates reformer machine four to five times a week and loving it, albeit I’m still as flexible as the tin man in Wizard of Oz.

2013 was probably my best year overall with fourteen top ten finishes and a few wins sprinkled with many personal bests. I feel this was the year I really stepped up my training albeit I did raise it to another level in 2016 with many more double days. Double days are a good way to increase mileage without the risk of injuries, or less chance of injuries, because you’re taking a break between runs and thus recovering, rather than a single long run where the fatigue can build up.  I also enjoy two shorter runs compared to one long run, it’s a personal thing.

In 2016 I experienced a second-coming after Raf Baugh coached me for six months in 2015 and encouraged me to step up the mileage, which I did using double days. Again, I raced often, ran a lot but did let the long medium run home in the week disappear, I had moved jobs by this time.  The stella run for the year was the Fremantle half where I ran a 1:14:59 and another 2:41 at the Perth City to Surf together with personal bests on most outings.  Unfortunately, a calf tear in 2017 put an end to my personal best journey and a bad case of Plantar Fasciitis in 2018 took away my top end pace.  No worries, what a journey and I turned my attention to Ultra running in 2020 onwards.

So to summarize as I do tend to digress, the three most important runs for marathon improvement are the mid-week long to medium run at marathon pace, the weekend long run and racing as often as possible, basically any run with a bib on your chest. Add in as much distance, weekly, as you can stand and cross train often and there you go. Sometimes marathon running is so simple, right ?

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Big shout out to fisiocrem , this product is just incredible for tired and aching legs. I use it daily and have noticed a vast improvement in recovery.

Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ )  The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products)  can be difficult to digest later in the event.  From the website :-

As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority. 

In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance. 

In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born. 

BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work! 

BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!

What can I say about HumanTecar,  ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !

Fractel ( https://fractel.com.au/ ) have your performance headgear covered. I love the colours and the functionality of these hats, I guarantee there is one model you’ll fall in love with.

Shokz headphones, let you keep in touch with the world around while losing yourself in quality tunes or podcasts. ( https://shokz.com.au/ )

T8 running apparel is the best you can get, second to none. Designed for the ultra humid Hong Kong conditions the owners live in.  It is light and does away with any chaffing worries. T8 is the name given to the highest typhoon warning in Honk Kong,  storms and typhoons with gusts exceeding 180kph, which explains the branding. ( https://t8.run/)

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