Sami Jabril is one of Canada’s most exciting marathon runners and a future Olympic hopeful. Last year, he took third place at Around the Bay and the 27-year-old is turning heads—mostly of other elite runners when he blasts right by them. Here’s his best five tips of moving from 30K to the marathon.
1. Create a realistic marathon time target goal using your 30k PB. The marathon can be a gruelling and a unforgiving distance race, if you race too ambitiously it can result in missing desired goal.
2. A 42km quality workout is impossible and unheard off. The closest best thing to this is the long run. The long run is arguably the most important run of the week for a marathoner. All if not most long runs should be 85-90% of goal pace of the 25k to 40k long run distance, depending on effort level. Regardless, consistency is key to tackle the whole 42.2k race.
3. In a 30k race some runners can get away with little to no fuelling, but in the marathon, especially in the second half, gels and sport drink fluids become your best friends. When glycogen level is getting low the body begins to shut down. Practice makes perfect in this area, fuelling with gels and sport drink fluids of different amounts in different weather conditions and the same preferred flavored, 2% or less weight loss is ideal.
4. Marathon training can wear you down and leave you tried, sore and exhausted throughout training build up. By consistently everyday reinforcing hydration and good quality carb loading in build up is key for recovery as you enter high mileage territory.
5. Training for a 30k race is similar to half marathon training, but not quite as long in weekly work volume or preparation duration. For a marathon build up it should take 12 to 16 weeks of training to prepare with a ramp up of relative high mileage built up by no more than 15% increase a week. The last 2 to 3 weeks you should be tapering down training weeks and then you are ready to go. The marathon awaits you.
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