Training for a marathon or a half marathon should not be taken lightly. With an official distance of 26.2 miles or 42.2 kilometers a marathon is not a race to undertake unless you are well prepared. People have been running marathons for more than one hundred years, and the marathon has its roots in greek history, where it is said that after the Persians had been defeated at the Battle of Marathon, Pheidippides, a greek soldier ran all the way to Athens to announce the victory, and then died. Although people no longer die while running a marathon, it is still quite an accomplishment to complete a marathon, not to mention being competitive while doing so.

Before you start your marathon or half marathon training, you should be able to run for at least 30 minutes without stopping. At this point distance is not important - you just need to get your body used to running. A combination of running/walking is great to use for pre-training because this will ease your body into the exercise and minimize the chance of getting a running injury. We have a selection of programs for beginners wanting to start out running.

As you train for your marathon or half marathon your mileage should gradually increase each week with your longest run being 18-20 miles for a full marathon and 9-12 for a half marathon. The general rule is that to avoid injuries you should not increase your weekly activity level by more than 10% per week. If you use the running log to keep track of your distance you can use the 'weekly progress' feature to make sure that you are not increasing your weekly mileage too quickly. During the final week(s) before the marathon you should taper off to allow your body to recover from the training and high mileage. This will allow you to feel strong and hungry for running on marathon day.