Ask the Coach: Is it smarter to chase one key marathon a year in midlife rather than multiple races?

Hi Mike, is it smarter to chase one key marathon a year in midlife rather than multiple races?

Leroy

Running coach answer: one key marathon a year in midlife

Elite runners very often run three or four marathons in a year, and over several years as a matter of course. 

This balances well with running a Spring Marathon, which may be a qualifying race for a summer championship race, and then an autumn Marathon. 

My contemporary, Charlie Spedding, from Gateshead Harriers, started his marathon running career in 1984, winning the Houston Marathon in January with 2.11.50, then taking my London Marathon crown in April with 2.09.57, and then taking the Olympic bronze medal at the Los Angeles Games in August with 2.09.58. 

In modern times, the Kenyan, Kelvin Kiptum, who, unfortunately, died in a car crash, ran the Valencia marathon in December 2022, with a record debut time of 2.01.53, then won London in April 2023 in 2.01.25 and then set the current world best in Chicago in October of 2023, with 2.00.35.

These, of course, are examples of the best runners in the world – but there isn’t any reason why runners in their 30s and 40s, and older, can’t cover three marathons over a year, or maybe four in 18 months. 

I ran three marathons a year over 11 years from 1979 to 1991 – all of them at international level representative races – my first one was in Essonne, Paris, and I ran 2.21 for 11^th place, my last was in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 years later, where I ran 2.17 for 7^th place. 

In between, I ran a 2.09 and a couple of 2.12s! 

My age span was from 26 to 37, but I was training hard for years before that. I then started to find it all very tough and psychologically felt I didn’t want to subject myself to that level of training anymore. I didn’t decide to stop running marathons; I just never found myself planning them. 

Stephen Blake, a good club runner from Aldershot, Farnham and District AC, went from being stuck at 2.26 for the marathon in his early 30s, to running a succession of faster times in his mid-30s by increasing his training volume: running successive London Marathons, he did 2.20 and then 2.19, and repeating the 2.19 at the Berlin Marathon 6 months later. 

Inevitably, there’s a point when you reach an age when more recovery time is needed. This differs for everyone and can depend on how many years you have been pushing yourself with marathon training at a high volume. Can you sustain that volume of training without breaking down, and how many years can you maintain the mental stamina? 

For some of the runners I coach, like Stephen Blake, it is in their DNA to want to do and to absorb big volumes of training, then race several high-quality marathons. Some even throw in an ultra-marathon or two!

Others manage to get to a high volume of training in a three- or four-month block, then find they can’t sustain it mentally. It can be social, around family and other commitments. They tend to focus on one marathon in the year. 

Equally, most of my coached runners find they can sustain two three-month marathon blocks in a year and then take part in a spring and an autumn marathon. 

As you get older, there are more variables: sustaining high volumes of training is more difficult, injury and illness become more of a factor. But it is not impossible to run two or three good marathons, with an adjustment in relative finishing times for age. 

Jackie Tombs, in Hampshire, ran Berlin last September and Tokyo in March this year. She is running Boston (as a qualifier) in April and Cape Town as a Masters Championship qualifier in May. Jackie won’t mind me saying she is 74!

What you can achieve may be down to factors such as age and health, it may be down to desire, but it is not out of the question for many older runners to run two or three quality marathons in a year. 

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