You may decide to deviate from the traditional triathlon racing season and integrate a marathon into the schedule. While a standalone marathon is not a route to improve running off the bike in triathlon, we understand the fun and allure of adding one to the schedule.

If you do decide to integrate a marathon in the schedule, don’t fall for the common mistake of dropping biking and swimming as you ramp in.  You can continue to progress as a triathlete while training for a marathon. In addition, a multisport approach to marathon training is proven to be highly effective, safer, and enables wonderful personal performance. 

It takes courage!  You will likely only run 3-5 times weekly, but the additional swimming will support cardiovascular conditioning, while the biking will develop muscle resilience and endurance.  These activities become wonderful, even critical, supporting sessions.  Don’t obsess on running miles or hours, and align with the multisport lens for marathon readiness.

You can toe the line prepared for your 26.2 miles by: 

• Prioritizing all of the runs in the baseline plan. The runs will now become your key sessions. 
• Still keep swimming and biking! By integrating the two other disciplines you gain low-risk cardiovascular conditioning and muscular resilience that will translate into run performance.  You will also find you are not as injured, or as fatigued, come race day. Despite less run volume than a normal training plan, you will have trained for endurance and resilience by utilizing all three sports. 
• If you find you need more run volume, add in the optional runs from the workout library within Today's Plan. 
• Hit a touch of marathon specific running during the last 6 weeks. The one area you can feel free to add on is with some duration on the endurance runs -- to develop the resilience during the final 6 weeks going into race day.

While this is not a conventional marathon approach, we have had athletes follow this training with great success. We know this will take courage to follow this approach, but lean into the process. If you would like to book a consultation with one of our coaches to develop a plan and strategize on the path to your best performance, please book one here.