Starting marathon training

Three or four running days can work for many recreational marathoners, but there is no universal minimum. The right frequency depends on your recent consistency, injury history, available time and how much running you can recover from. The Clinic often starts with four because it spreads the work, while cycling or swimming can add aerobic training without replacing the need to prepare for running itself.

Start from your current running, not a fixed countdown. A race-specific block often sits somewhere around 12 to 20 weeks, but that is a coaching convention rather than a rule. Someone without a consistent base needs a base phase before that block; an experienced runner already carrying the volume may need less. Health, recent long-run durability, available training days and the race goal all affect the answer.

Readiness is a combination of recent consistency, current health, injury history, comfortable running capacity, time until race day and the goal you are setting. No single long run or number of training days proves you are ready. If the distance gap is large, build an aerobic base first and reassess rather than using a race plan to manufacture readiness.

There is no evidence-based weekly number that makes every runner ready. The Clinic uses current weekly volume and recent long-run durability as planning benchmarks, then considers experience, health, available weeks and the goal. Higher performance goals usually require more durable volume, but any benchmark is a starting point for judgement, not a prerequisite or a safety guarantee.

Two things, mostly. Chasing small gains before the foundations are in, and running too much. Get the basics down first, sleep and consistency above all, and be honest about doing less rather than more.