Do the Training...to Do the Training

I’ve had a few conversations lately that go something like this:

“I’m going to take a bit of a break now, then I’ll pick up training PROPERLY in the new year to get fit for the marathon.”

It sounds reasonable, even strategic. Take a rest now, then hit the ground running later. But the truth is, it doesn’t work that way. Because you don’t get fit while doing marathon training. You get fit to be able to do marathon training. I've learnt this the hard way myself and this knowledge baked into all athletes I have preparing for Spring 2026 marathons, regardless of their level.

If you’ve read my earlier blogs, You Can’t Fire a Cannon from a Canoe and Do More to Do More, you’ll already know where this is headed. The first reminds us that big outputs require a stable platform. The second argues that capacity is earned through consistency. Together, they underpin what I want to say here: if you want to train for a marathon, or chase a personal best, you need to arrive at your training plan with enough foundation to handle the work that plan demands.

You Don’t Build the Boat Mid Storm

When someone says they’ll “get fit during marathon training,” they’re effectively planning to build the canoe while trying to fire the cannon. The first few weeks of a marathon plan aren’t designed to get you from unfit to fit; they’re designed to build on the work you’ve already been doing.

If your recent running has been inconsistent, or you’ve had a long break, then suddenly jumping into the higher mileage and intensity of a marathon block is like flooring the accelerator in a car you haven’t serviced for months. It might go for a while, but it won’t go far. Research backs this up. The British Journal of Sports Medicine notes that when weekly training loads jump too sharply (usually 20% or more above your recent average), injury risk skyrockets. Likewise, physiotherapist and coach Tom Goom highlights that when load exceeds your body’s current capacity, whether that’s your tendons, muscles or cardiovascular system, something eventually gives. You can’t shortcut adaptation. Your body needs time to absorb work, and that’s what the base phase provides.

Time Based Goals: The Fitness Before the Fitness

This idea becomes even more important when we talk about time based goals, those ambitious, often personal best targets that push us beyond our comfort zone. Let’s say your goal is to break 3 hours 30 minutes for the marathon. That means running about 5 minutes per kilometre (8:00 per mile) for 42.2 kilometres. A typical 16 week plan for that goal might include weekly mileage of 50 to 70 km, long runs reaching 30 to 35 km, midweek tempo sessions at or near marathon pace, and interval sessions around threshold pace.

Now imagine you’ve taken the last six weeks off or reduced your running to a casual jog here and there. On paper, the plan looks achievable, but your body (and perhaps your mind) is not ready for it. Those early sessions, designed to progress fitness, now become shock therapy. Instead of building, you’re battling. Fatigue accumulates faster than adaptation. You start skipping sessions, the quality drops, niggles appear, and before week three you’re adjusting or abandoning the plan.

In that sense, your race outcome was compromised before day one of training even began. Not because of poor effort or motivation, but because the base conditioning wasn’t there to support the workload. The irony is that people often assume they’ll “get fit” once the training starts, but marathon preparation isn’t about getting fit. It’s about sharpening the fitness you already have into something specific. The deeper your base before you begin, the more of that sharpening you can handle, and the better the result. Of course everyone is unique and an athlete running, for 4 months now tackling their first marathon next year will be very different from a 20+ marathoner in their 40's running consistently year on year. But the premise holds true regardless of levels.

A Balanced Programme: Aerobic, Threshold, and Fast Work

Here’s another important view I hold. For a large majority of runners, if managed safely, a well balanced running programme that focuses on a healthy mix of aerobic running, threshold efforts and some fast biomechanics work can prepare the body extremely well for what’s to come. That fast biomechanics work helps increase the "speed gap", the buffer between your current pace and the pace you aspire to hold.

In plain language: your aerobic runs build the engine, your threshold work raises the efficiency and pace you can sustain, and your fast biomechanics work (strides, short sprints, hill sprints, form drills) develops neuromuscular readiness, leg turnover, and speed reserve. Research into the concept of anaerobic speed reserve (ASR), sometimes known as "the speed gap" highlights this. ASR is defined as the difference between maximal sprinting speed and maximal aerobic speed, and being able to work above aerobic speeds gives you a buffer when you need to lift pace in training or racing. (PLOS One Journal)

Those fast sessions (don't confuse this with short track intervals, which are usually upper end threshold workouts) are often neglected when runners feel the need to “just get volume in.” But the truth is, if you skip the neuromuscular and speed component, you’re limiting how much you can gain from threshold and aerobic work. You’re narrowing that speed gap. You’re entering training with fewer tools.

So again, you don’t just need to base train for volume; you need to base train smart, incorporating aerobic work, threshold sessions and faster biomechanical drills. That gives you the resilience to absorb training, and the speed potential to convert the work into time gains when the race comes.

The Base as the Enabler

This is why I talk so often about the base phase as being real training, not the warm up act. It’s where you quietly build the aerobic and musculoskeletal foundation that everything else relies on.

Those easy miles now are not wasted miles. They’re insurance. They’re the slow conditioning that allows you to tolerate intensity later. They strengthen tendons, bones, and connective tissue. They let you handle back to back long runs, threshold work, and marathon pace sessions without breaking down. The truth is, your base doesn’t just determine how well you start a training plan; it shapes how far through it you can go, and how much benefit you can extract from each session.

Consistency Over Intensity

We’ve maybe seen or know runners try to make up for lost time by jumping into heavy training loads straight away. It rarely ends well. You can’t cram for a marathon like you cram for an exam. The body doesn’t respond to panic mileage; it responds to patient, progressive load.

That’s why the saying holds: You must do the training, to do the training.

Before you start the marathon plan, you should already be running enough that its early weeks feel challenging but manageable, not overwhelming. That might mean eight to twelve weeks of consistent varied running before the plan begins. It’s not about starting the marathon plan early; it’s about running often with some structure to stimulate what will be stressed later. Because marathon training tests your limits, but base training builds them.

The Takeaway

If you’re planning a spring marathon next year, especially if you’ve got a time based goal in mind, don’t wait until January to start getting fit for it. Start now. Build the engine, the habits, the resilience. When the "official plan" begins, you’ll be training from fitness, not for it, and that’s where the real progress happens.

So this is your reminder: you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe, and you can’t “get fit during the plan.” You have to do the training, to do the training. The sooner you start building that base, the more your marathon training, and your marathon itself, will reward you for it. If you want help with an objective view, experience as an athlete and coach and a plan for training, to get you ready for the training, please get in touch.